1 hour ago
19
Tom Canton and John Cross discuss the biggest Arsenal stories of the week on Seeing Red including Gabriel Magalhaes’ injury for Brazil in a friendly against Senegal
The big talk of the week has been that of Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes coming off injured for Brazil in their friendly with Senegal. The player looked in real discomfort as he walked around the edge of the Emirates Stadium pitch in front of a packed crowd.
Reports had emerged during the game in the wake of the injury that the defender had warmed up separately from the squad in Friday's training session with a consciousness about his load management leading up to the game. Naturally, this sparked quite a response from the Arsenal fan base.
In our first episode of Seeing Red, Arsenal reporter Tom Canton and The Mirror's chief football writer John Cross discussed plenty of topics, but the headline act most certainly was Gabriel. Cross was keen to point out the context of just what playing for your country, Brazil in particular, means to these players.
"I think sometimes we underestimate just how much the players want to play for their country," Cross said. "Yes, it used to be, I think, then that England would have a bit of a sort of a struggle sometimes to persuade players to report up.
"I think if you tap into the Brazil mindset, particularly the South American mindset, their passion for playing for their country is unparalleled. It really is. They want to play. They are determined to play. It means so much for them.
"You see that in the kind of celebration videos. And yes, it's a friendly, I get that. But then the competition is pretty high and players want to stake a claim.
"Should a federation, should a national manager be reckless with a player who's played a lot of minutes? Absolutely not. And, I do think it was clear that, sometimes you have to rest and rotate, but it does sometimes sort of kind of irk me.
"I was thinking, hang on a minute, what about the, 70, 80 odd thousand at Wembley? What about the huge crowd at the Emirates? People do love their international football.
"The players love it and they want to play. Should you then take risks on it? But you know yourself sometimes, that, players do have specific different training schedules. And just because maybe he's done something different from the rest of the group doesn't necessarily mean that actually, you know, he had this sort of kind of, you know, basically a sort of thigh or groin issue and then pulled it.
"It doesn't necessarily mean the same thing. So I do think it's a really interesting point. But I bet you that if you'd asked Gabriel on the Saturday morning, do you want to play? He would say yes every time because he knows what's at stake."
Canton, however, was less nuanced and much more emotive. It would be fair to say that the loss of the defender, potentially, from the North London Derby is an unacceptable, avoidable reality from what was just a friendly in the rawest sense.
"So journalist hat off, fan hat on: I'm apoplectic, about this," Canton said. "Because, from my point of view, if there's knowledge and understanding that there's any level of concern [about an injury], and this isn't a competitive fixture - which obviously it wasn't - that they shouldn't be risked.
"And also, there's this argument as well with Brazil, with it being a World Cup year, that you want to protect your best assets and for me, Gabriel is, is their best defender in their squad.
"You know, they've got some talented players, absolutely and Marquinhos next to him is another brilliant player, but the form Gabriel has been in the last couple of seasons in particular has been massive."
You can listen back to the Seeing Red podcast with further discussion on the injury to Gabriel, Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze scoring for England and a look ahead to the North London Derby, wherever you get your podcasts and on our YouTube channel.
New episodes to come every single week breaking down all the happening at the club from our reporters on the ground, home and away.
English (US) ·