Gabriel Martinelli may have made quite the impact after coming off the bench to help Arsenal record a victory over Aston Villa on Saturday afternoon, but it's another Gabriel who made one particular intervention that effectively set the stage for his compatriot.
Gabriel Magalhaes, usually referred to as 'big Gabi' by Gunners manager Mikel Arteta to differentiate between the aforementioned 21-year-old and Gabriel Jesus, certainly wasn't at his best during the midweek defeat at the hands of Manchester City which was summed up with a loose pass that was eventually punished by Jack Grealish.
However, despite £21million January transfer window signing Jakub Kiwior being an option to replace the Brazilian at the heart of Arsenal's defence alongside William Saliba, it was no surprise that the 25-year-old maintained his ever-present record in the Premier League this season.
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And the decision paid off, eventually. As pointed out by Arteta, the visitors were not great in the first-half, they conceded after just five minutes as Ollie Watkins broke the deadlock and then just after the half hour mark when Philippe Coutinho was afforded too much space before picking out the bottom corner.
"It’s difficult now because it’s been a rollercoaster and was very emotional at the end," the Spaniard said in his post-match press conference. "I think we showed a lot of resilience character and quality. The context of the game was difficult, with the performance that we had against City and having to come here after less than 72 hours and then after five minutes, you are down. Then you have to play the next 90 minutes like we are as a team right now.
"We had some difficulties in the first half collectively and individually we brought the level right down and we stopped doing the simple things right. At half-time we said the moment is now, we have to raise the individual level, we have to look each other in the face if we want to come out and win the game because we can.
"Then we altered a few things and we produced a very strong performance. Probably we should have won it earlier than we have done."
Of course, having scored four times at Villa Park a lot of the praise will go to Arsenal's attacking players for the comeback win, in particular, Martinelli whose role in the last two goals was the perfect response to being left out of a Premier League starting line-up for the first time this season.
Although, he does have his compatriot to thank. As discussed by many Gunners supporters on Reddit, Gabriel made a wonderful intervention to stop Leon Bailey in the 79th minute. Had the tackle been mistimed then it would have been a penalty for the hosts and potentially a red card for the defender.
So whilst Martinelli may have played himself back into form with a pre-assist for Jorginho's effort that has done down as an Emiliano Martinez own goal and scoring his first goal across any competition this year, that platform is perhaps not created without that superb Gabriel tackle.
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