Arsenal beat Juventus – Gilberto plays well
March 29, 2006
Gilberto shows Juve who’s boss
Gilberto played very well against a very strong Juventus midfield consisting of his Brazilian compatriot Emerson, and his former club team mate Patrick Vieira.
Gilberto kept both of them very quiet all game – he did nothing of note, which is exactly what I like to see from Gilberto. The more he is quiet, the more he’s Arsenal to play flowing football around him.
Arsenal fans had the following to say on Gilberto’s game last night:
Great game. Loved the way he told Zlatan off. It looked like he was saying ‘You and me. In the centre circle. Now!’
Outstanding performance.
Gilberto has slowly come back into form. It helps that Fabregas has finally started to control games on his own.
I think Gilberto is a leader. He just needed to stick to his defined role in front of the back four and lead the team defensively, especially the midfielders.
Finally retained discipline and knows his role. Absolutely no surprise that Gilberto’s renaissance has coincided with Fabregas’ maturation. Gilberto needs to be led and we’re developing a leader.
With regards to that last comment, I don’t believe Gilberto is being ‘led’ as such, I do believe though that he needs his midfield partner to attack well in order for him to defend well.
If the team relies on Gilberto to attack, he will not do it well.
Thankfully, Cesc is doing exceptionally well. Smile
One last thing: this is my favourite Gilberto-fan quote of the night:
Great game from Gilberto.
I think bare Henry and possibly Sendoros, Gilberto has the best physical presentation in our team and he is really dominating the opponent in last 5 or six games. Sometime, I actually feel like he is trying to lead the team as well.. he put more tackles and no nonsense headers, and he has the best way of nicking the ball off the opponent and to our players. His passing is occassionally you cant explain, especially the long range.
No one can actually question his ability to read the game and his positioning on the field, because he is always there in the middle of the action or the opponent route to the goal.
I actually believe Cesc improvements also due to Gilberto telling him to work more on his posititioning.. he has been talkcing this about Cesc for a long time. Cesc used to go all over places unnecessarily and it mess up Gilberto game too. Now Cesc take better positions, occupy less but more effective space, which he then can carry the attack.
If he carry on like this, i believe he can form an awesome partnership with Cesc.
That piece of wisdom from `truongbt`.
Video of Gilberto having a go at Zlatan Ibrahimovic:
http://www.invisiblewall.net/videos/bert_sorting_out_zlatan.avi