Welcome Pablo Mari? Is he the next Merti or Mustafi?
Arsenal have been in contact with Flamengo FC, one of the most notable South American clubs known for producing gems and once home to the likes of Adriano, Ronaldinho, and Romario, regarding the signing of their star defender Pablo Mari. In fact, according to the recent reports, he was pictured at Rio de Janeiro airport with Edu on Friday evening and boarded a plane to London, touching down at Heathrow on Saturday lunchtime.
This means Arsenal have finally decided to spend money on a center-back. Arsenal are believed to be paying around £7million to sign Mari, which represents a big profit on the £1m Flamengo paid Manchester City last summer. But the important question is, is he good enough for Arsenal? Or since any center-back is good enough for our team at the moment to be fully honest, the question is does he have what it takes to play in PL? Keeping in mind that he was once at Man City not so long ago but never made it to the playing squad.
He has gone from one loan to the next, playing in Segunda Division or more commonly known as LaLiga 2, Eredivisie and then back to Laliga 2 before being sold to Flamingo FC.
Based on the limited information I could find related to him, I have got a rough sketch of the type of player he probably is. Completely analyzing a player like this is obviously not possible but you can get a good understanding of the players playing style if you know how to analyze properly.
Pablo Mari reminds me of Mertesacker. The height and heading skills, body difficult to balance, not the paciest player on the pitch, though the Spanish national seems quicker than him. One of the things that's mentioned and I noticed as well is that he seems to enjoy slide tackles a lot. He appears to be good at tackling but PL is very different from the leagues he has played in so far. Here the more you go on the ground, the bigger liability you can be to your team so that is one concern. Other than that, the passing ability is clearly not one of his strongest points and his off the ball movement seems about average.
On the other hand, the 26 y/o obviously has some clear strengths as well. His height makes him strong in the air, a good header of the ball, seems brave which is important for a center-back, decent positioning but would require more work in that area, and as mentioned earlier, a good tackler of the ball. To me, he looks somewhat like a mixture of Mertesacker and Mustafi, without Mustafi's massive error-prone ability hopefully.
Every player coming from lower leagues is a gamble no matter what the price tag. Hopefully, he turns out good, brings his success from the Brazilian Serie A and helps us achieve Europa League success, the only possible path to playing Champions League next season.
This means Arsenal have finally decided to spend money on a center-back. Arsenal are believed to be paying around £7million to sign Mari, which represents a big profit on the £1m Flamengo paid Manchester City last summer. But the important question is, is he good enough for Arsenal? Or since any center-back is good enough for our team at the moment to be fully honest, the question is does he have what it takes to play in PL? Keeping in mind that he was once at Man City not so long ago but never made it to the playing squad.
He has gone from one loan to the next, playing in Segunda Division or more commonly known as LaLiga 2, Eredivisie and then back to Laliga 2 before being sold to Flamingo FC.
Based on the limited information I could find related to him, I have got a rough sketch of the type of player he probably is. Completely analyzing a player like this is obviously not possible but you can get a good understanding of the players playing style if you know how to analyze properly.
Pablo Mari reminds me of Mertesacker. The height and heading skills, body difficult to balance, not the paciest player on the pitch, though the Spanish national seems quicker than him. One of the things that's mentioned and I noticed as well is that he seems to enjoy slide tackles a lot. He appears to be good at tackling but PL is very different from the leagues he has played in so far. Here the more you go on the ground, the bigger liability you can be to your team so that is one concern. Other than that, the passing ability is clearly not one of his strongest points and his off the ball movement seems about average.
On the other hand, the 26 y/o obviously has some clear strengths as well. His height makes him strong in the air, a good header of the ball, seems brave which is important for a center-back, decent positioning but would require more work in that area, and as mentioned earlier, a good tackler of the ball. To me, he looks somewhat like a mixture of Mertesacker and Mustafi, without Mustafi's massive error-prone ability hopefully.
Every player coming from lower leagues is a gamble no matter what the price tag. Hopefully, he turns out good, brings his success from the Brazilian Serie A and helps us achieve Europa League success, the only possible path to playing Champions League next season.
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