Arsenal ace who took ‘complete advantage’ of Crystal Palace hailed by BBC pundit

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BBC pundit Garth Crooks has praised the ‘ingenuity’ of Gabriel Magalhaes after the Arsenal defender took ‘complete advantage’ of Crystal Palace in Saturday’s 5-0 win.

The Gunners matched their biggest win of the Premier League season so far at the weekend to return to winning ways. Arsenal had failed to win their last three fixtures and lost each of their previous two matches. But Gabriel helped to see Mikel Arteta’s team thrash the Eagles.

Gabriel broke the deadlock from Declan Rice’s 11th-minute corner before creating Arsenal’s second from another corner after 37 minutes. Goalkeeper Dean Henderson was helpless to prevent the 26-year-old’s header rippling the net as it bounced off his body for an own goal.

Gabriel is the only Arsenal star in Crooks’ Premier League Team of the Week

Goals from Leandro Trossard (59’) and Gabriel Martinelli (90’+4, 90’+5) helped Arsenal pull further clear of Crystal Palace, too. But Crooks has named Gabriel as the sole Arsenal player in his Premier League Team of the Week after he made a joke of Crystal Palace’s defending.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen such abject defending by a team,” Crooks noted in his BBC Sport column. “But Crystal Palace’s defensive display as they lost 5-0 at Arsenal on Saturday was certainly up there. Gabriel took complete advantage of a team in defensive disarray.

“Why Palace weren’t prepared to compete in the air with Gabriel on the set-piece for the first goal was hard to fathom. By the time the second set-piece came along, you’d have thought they would have learned a lesson – but sadly not.

“Gabriel’s header went in off goalkeeper Dean Henderson. The Eagles were now 2-0 down, with both goals created by Gabriel’s ingenuity, while a challenge by the visitors was nowhere to be seen.”

Crystal Palace defender Richards did not have an answer to Gabriel early on

Crystal Palace tasked Chris Richards with marking Gabriel at the corner which led to Arsenal breaking the deadlock. But while the 23-year-old tracked the Brazilian’s run into the six-yard area, he did not fight Gabriel in the air to leave him a free header to find the bottom corner.

Richards also marked Gabriel at the corner which led to Henderson’s own goal and he again tracked the centre-back’s run. But the Eagles enforcer switched off for a split second and let Gabriel get goal-side to meet Bukayo Saka’s delivery with a free header from just a yard out.

Getting the better of Richards from Rice’s corner clearly gave Gabriel the confidence to get the better of the Crystal Palace man again for Arsenal’s second goal. But he may have been somewhat frustrated to not score himself having had an empty corner of the net to aim at.