From a personal point of view Big Gabi is also pleased with his output, especially after picking up a thigh injury that ruled him out of nine games through November and December.
“I’m very happy,” he says. “It’s been my best season at this club, and I was out for more than a month. As soon as I came back, I tried to do my best for the team on the pitch, so if I look back at that, then yes, I’m very happy.
“I give everything when I’m on the pitch, and I try to push everyone. I try to bring energy and help my teammates. I want to give everything for this badge. My job is to defend and bring energy for my teammates and for the fans.”
His job may well be to defend, but that hasn’t stopped him from racking up 24 goals in his Gunners career so far. He recently played his 250th match for us, making him second only to Gabriel Martinelli on the club’s all-time list of most appearances for Brazilian players (he overtook Gilberto Silva in March). So that’s an enviable strike rate of about one in every 10 games.
“I’m very proud – it’s a big number, a lot of games,” he says about reaching the milestone. “But I want more, as I said before, I just need to keep going. I’m very happy to put this shirt on every day to help this team, this club.”
Big Gabi has netted 20 times for us in the Premier League, and among defenders only Laurent Koscielny with 22 has more in the competition, from 70 fewer appearances. Is that something he pays much attention to?
“I think it’s quite good,” he says, smiling. “I’m happy to score when I can, I know it’s close to the record at Arsenal now. I want to be in the history of this club, so I would love to get that as well. When I was young I played up front so I scored a lot of goals. It’s obviously a lot harder to do that as a defender, but I’ve worked at it and I’ve learned a lot.
“I work a lot on it in training, like we all do. People might talk about Gabi scoring at corners, but it’s group work. We work all together on a team on set-pieces and they all help me like I try to help them.”
