What can u expect from Gabriel Magalhães? This is a thread. Please like ,rt,share and follow me @amiruleno and @LilleLatino. @afcxman - photo

Age: 22
Nationality: Brazil
Height:1.90 m
Position:CB
Foot:Left
Agent:Elenko Sports Ltda.
Joined: Jan 2017
Contract at Lille: until June 2023

He arrived at Lille for €3m. Before cementing his place as the main CB at Lille, he was gaining experience at Troyes,a Ligue 2 club and next at Dinamo Zagreb II during his loan in 17/18 season.

In his first season since coming back from loan, he played in 17 games in all competitions for a total of 1243 minutes. He also score 1 goal which provided by Nicolas Pepe and only receive 1 yellow card during this period.

During the first 23 match in the league the 18/19 season, he only played for 1 minute during a 3-0 win against Marseille. Most of the time, he is not even in the squad (18/23 match).

Then, he was given a start and play for 90 minute against Guingamp which they won 2-0.

After this victory, he rarely dropped and always named in starting eleven which helped them to finished 2nd in Ligue 1 with the least amount of goals conceded which is 33.

PSG and Nice are second for 35 GA. Lille lost for 7 times which only bettered by PSG with only 5.

He kept the momentum onto 19/20 season and played for 34 matches in all competitions (2987 mins).Amazingly, during his career from 15/16 to 19/20, he never got sent off and only miss 2 matches because of injury reason.

He also played as DM once against Saint Etienne for 76 mins.

It is unfair to compare Lille of this season which ended early because of Covid-19 to 2018/19 season. But, it is a must to know why & how they missed out on CL spot eventho Gabriel, the hot prospect CB was playing more games this season.

Lille only missed out CL by 1 point to Rennes.They already lost 9 times(more than 18/19 season:7 but still have 11 games to play). But,they also are the third team with fewest goal conceded(27). The main problem here is not on defence, but more about not scoring enough.(8 GD)

By reading,analysis and speaking to @LilleLatino this is a basic info on how Lille play. This will put more context into how Gabriel actually play for Lille.

-Vertical team
-Not possesion based
-Not many transition
-doesnt play from the back
-attack come from wing,fullbacks

Next,we'll talk about his strengths&weaknesses.

strengths :
aerial duel
composure
positioning
distribution
quick

Weakness:
Inexperience
reliance on left foot
playing from the back

Since mosts already speak about his amazing stats ,I will not cover that much on his capabilities. I recommend the readers to read their excellent in-depth analysis threads about his strengths. Here I will cover more on his weakness and potential which is rarely talked yet.

Speaking to these Lille fans who follow their matches on weekly basis, they reminded that Gabriel is not as class as we hyped, but currently is way better than david luiz and mustafi.

From their perspective, Gabriel weakest point is playing from the back.

What I meant is not those progressive long balls but the way City and now Arsenal play from goalkeeper with defenders to start an attack.

They (Lille fans) believed that Gabriel has that weakness since Lille doesn't play like city and arsenal.

They saw that Gabriel is not that good with his foot for this kind of play.

But, I believed with Arteta which is known for his focus on the details can improve this area for Gabriel as we already seen for mustafi and david luiz under Arteta.

Besides, I also asked if whether Gabriel kept making the same mistakes. They said that there is none for this season and for 2018/19 he always out of position. That's all for his mistakes.

In terms of his reliance on using left foot, only 5 % successful come from his right foot. This could be nitpicking, as it is not a big problem with most players are right footed which could help him to change the direction of the play.

The most concerning issue is his experience since he only played for 51 games at the highest level which includes Ligue 1, France cup games and CL matches.

He certainly will make mistakes in the future especially when adapting to Premier League if he decide to move to Arsenal.

First, he need to adapt to the Premier League physicality and its faster tempo of play.

Besides, he will play in a new system in a new team which start the play from the back. This require more time and experience.

But his potential eventually will eclipse all those weakness.

Overall he is:
-Fit(good injury record,only 2 match missed because injury)
-Composed(doesnt rash, 0 red card still)
-Good ball distributor(long balls from the deep similar to luiz style of play)
-left foot CB (fit arteta criteria)
-Great in the air
-Cheap for his age&potential

If Arsenal could get him to pair with Saliba, they could create one of the best CB pairing for the club since the past decade, for more years to come.

Thanks for reading. Make sure to follow and share this thread.