Gabriel Magalhães made a spectacular return to the starting lineup on Tuesday evening to play a key role in Arsenal’s 4-1 win over Aston Villa.
The encounter was billed as a clash between title rivals, but the Gunners put the pretenders in their place with an impressive second-half performance that blew away Unai Emery’s side.
Gabriel, making his first start in six weeks after recovering from injury, got the ball rolling shortly after the restart, nodding home from a corner in trademark fashion.
From that point onwards, the floodgates opened. Martin Zubimendi grabbed a rare goal just minutes later to double their lead, before Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus put the Villans to the sword with superb strikes.
A late Ollie Watkins goal could not even spoil Gabriel’s evening, who had already been subbed off by then, although Arsenal fans will be hoping the complaint that precipitated his substitution was nothing more serious than cramp.
There can be no argument of the centre-back’s considerable significance to the team. This was their biggest win, both in terms of scoreline and value to their campaign, since he was sidelined by an adductor injury while on international duty in November. In that period, the north London outfit dropped points against Chelsea, lost to Villa and squeaked past Wolves and Everton with unconvincing performances.
A fit Gabriel is pivotal Arsenal’s chances of lifting the Premier League trophy at the end of the season, and Mikel Arteta knows it better than anyone.
“We saw it today,” he told Sky Sports. “He came back after six weeks out, which should’ve probably been eight weeks out but he came back earlier. He composed himself against probably one of the best strikers in the league, who is very hard to mark. I thought he was tremendous.”
On Gabriel’s goal, Arteta told BBC Match of the Day: “Both boxes I think the person and character he brings to the team is something else. He’s been out for six weeks, he hasn’t played yet and today he has to play against the most dangerous team, especially with space in behind, and he was fabulous.”
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