Why David Seaman hailed this Arsenal defender

Former Arsenal star David Seaman couldn’t help but heap praise on the Gunners’ Gabriel Magalhaes’ defender after his impressive performance vs Man Utd last weekend.

Recall that manager Mikel Arteta gave Magalhaes his first Premier League start of the season when Arsenal played against Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium in a game that ended in a 3-1 win for the Gunners.

Gabriel’s stunning moment was in the 88th minute when Manchester United substitute Alejandro Garnacho raced free of the Arsenal defence and slipped the ball past Aaron Ramsdale to fire what appeared to be the winning goal for the Red Devils.

The goal was later ruled out as the VAR review found Garnacho to have strayed very marginally offside.

Meanwhile, the reason that Garnacho was offside was because Gabriel had halted his tracking run at the precise moment that the ball was played through to the Red Devils attacker.

Gabriel’s action was a high-risk strategy as it could have led to a goal if miscalculated.

Speaking on the Seaman Podcast after the match, the former Arsenal goalkeeper highlighted Gabriel’s game-changing moment.

He said, “When he [Garnacho] went through, my first reaction was, ‘Oh, he could be offside’. I’ll tell you why, because Gabriel [Magalhaes] did amazingly holding his line. When you see a still of it, he’s almost like bending over to keep on the line to try and get him offside, he does brilliantly there.”