Ian Wright pleads with Arsenal to ‘pay anything’ to keep hold of key duo

Ian Wright has pleaded with Arsenal to pay whatever it takes to keep two of Mikel Arteta’s key players at the Emirates for their entire careers.

Arteta got his sixth season in charge of the Gunners underway with a narrow 1-0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford.

There is plenty of pressure on Arsenal this season having finished runners-up in the last three campaigns, and the addition of a recognised striker in Viktor Gyokeres has only heightened those expectations of silverware.

But despite Gyokeres’ arrival, Arsenal’s potential title charge is still likely to be predicated upon their rock-solid defence, which has been the league’s best in the last two seasons.

At the heart of that defence is the partnership between William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes who, once again, played a vital role in Arsenal’s clean sheet at the weekend.

Gabriel has already committed his long-term future to the club by signing a new deal this summer, while there is hope that Saliba will follow suit despite interest from Real Madrid.

But Wright urged the club to go even further and pay whatever it takes to ensure that both players don’t leave the club until their playing days are over.

‘You see how they celebrate tackles and finishing out games,’Wright said on the latest Arsecast podcast. ‘We haven’t got the best defensive record over the last few years, especially against Liverpool and City, for no reason.

‘And this is where the ‘One-nil to the Arsenal came from’. We talk about Tony (Adams) and (Steve) Bould as centre halves, but the only thing missing from these two is a Premier League win.

‘I’m desperate for these two to win one because these two could go down as two of the best ever centre halves and I say that with all due respect.

‘These two get into my team because they have everything, everything that we had back then. We’ve got ‘One-nil to the Arsenal’ back because of that defence and because of those two and what they are capable of doing; the personality, the way the boys look up to them in the dressing room, the fight.

‘That’s why you can go to United and play like we did and win – because of what those guys are doing at the back.

‘And for me, I would pay them anything for them to stay for the rest of their careers here because they are two of the best defenders we have ever had at our club.

‘And once they start winning things – which they will – then people will start saying, ‘Yeah, I get it’.’

Speaking after the win against United, Arteta was keen to praise his entire team for the effort in grinding out an important first win of the season.

‘We showed it in a different way today, the Spaniard said. ‘I think we did two things very well. One, to take the set-piece and then react to, especially, mistakes. Some of them are necessary, some of them unusual. 

‘But the way every single player reacted to that gives us the opportunity to win the game. If not, it’s impossible. And that’s about how we compete and how much we want it as a team.’

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