Speaking on his YouTube channel, Rio Ferdinand has been speaking about Arsenal’s lack of discipline and particularly Granit Xhaka and Gabriel Magalhaes.
The Gunners have an woeful disciplinary record under Mikel Arteta, and two of their serial offenders are Xhaka and Gabriel.
Ferdinand attributes their struggled to not only a lack of discipline, but a lack of judgement, claiming that they don’t have the ability to think about the timing of their tackles.
Ferdinand says that it’s things like that which separate the top players from the mediocre ones.
What’s been said?
Ferdinand gave his view on the ill-disciplined pair.
“Why is it that Xhaka and Gabriel keep getting booked the way they do?” Ferdinand’s co-host asked.
“It’s a lack of discipline, you have to have sometimes a trigger in your mind when you’re going in for a tackle saying ‘is this the right time or not?’ That separates the top players a lot of the time from the ok and good players. If you can’t rely on people they’re worthless, you need to be able to go on a pitch and say ‘I can rely on him.’ These guys at the moment, that’s been Arsenal’s problem, there’s a lack of discipline,” Ferdinand said.
The most recent Arsenal player to be sent off was Gabriel Martinelli, but Ferdinand thinks he falls under a different category.
“Martinelli is different, I thought it was laughable that he got two yellows for that, he’s a young kid as well and he’ll learn from that.”
Educate them
Ferdinand says that some of Arsenal’s players don’t know how to time a tackle, and that’s something Mikel Arteta needs to work on.
Of course, mentality and the ability to stay cool under pressure are two things that can’t necessarily be coached, but timing challenges and toeing the line of what constitutes a yellow card are two things that Arteta should be able to teach.
The manager needs to address these ongoing discipline problems.
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