After a bad week for Mikel Arteta which saw Arsenal lose their first two matches since the Premier League has returned, news has recently broken that defender David Luiz has signed a new contract at the Gunners.
According to Sky Sports, Luiz was about to be out of contract at the end of June, but Arsenal head coach Arteta had urged the club to extend his deal.
It looks like they have listened as he has now put pen-to-paper on a contract extension that will keep him at the North London side for another season at least.
It would have been understandable if the club had given him a short extension to keep him at the club until the end of this season, but it seems baffling that they have given the 33-year-old a contract to stay for the 20/21 campaign too given his performances for the side.
His display against Manchester City really summed up his time at the club. His mistakes which led to the first two goals and subsequent red card led to SofaScore giving him a 3.0 rating, with many including Jamie Carragher suggesting that would be the last time we see the Brazilian in the Premier League (Sky Sports).
The stats which further emphasise that the Gunners should not be extending his contract by one year, are those which show how many red cards he has had at Arsenal compared to Chelsea and the penalties he has given away. As per OptaJoe’s Duncan Alexander, he averaged a red card once every 160 PL games with Chelsea, whilst it is once every 13 games with Arsenal. Meanwhile he gave a penalty away once every 53 games for Chelsea, compared to once every 6.5 games for Arsenal.
Under Arteta, Arsenal should be looking to move on from the likes of Luiz and build a younger, hungrier team utilising the likes of Rob Holding and the incoming William Saliba. Indeed that seemed to be his long-term plan, a revolution of youngsters, which has seen the likes of Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson and Joe Willock be given minutes in the team. ]
Extending the Brazilian’s contract on the back of a below average campaign goes against this policy and is frankly baffling.
Gunners fans, what are your thoughts on this? Comment below!
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