Arteta lauds Gabriel's 'unique' quality for Arsenal

Mikel Arteta believes Gabriel Magalhaes offers a "unique" quality to his Arsenal side after the defender scored on his 200th Premier League appearance.

The Gunners defeated Everton 2-0 at Emirates Stadium on Saturday, with Ezri Konsa opening the scoring with his first goal for the club before Gabriel netted after the break.

Gabriel's goal was his 14th headed goal in the Premier League, with only Olivier Giroud (27) scoring more headers for Arsenal in the competition (Ian Wright also 14), but this was the Brazilian's first goal in the competition to not come from a set-piece situation.

In Gabriel and Konsa, Arsenal had two centre-backs score in a Premier League match for the first time since February 2024 (Gabriel and William Saliba against David Moyes’ West Ham, in a 6-0 win).

Arteta was full of praise for his centre-back, who also avoided an injury after an awkward lunge to intercept a cross early in the second half.

"I think he's one of the best centre-backs in the world, no question, with the impact he has in both boxes," Arteta told Sky Sports about Gabriel.

"His leadership, his presence, what he offers to the rest of the boys is unique and we're very happy to have him."

And on the win itself, Arteta added: "Really happy. We made five changes. We've had three games in less than six days, so we knew how tough it was going to be.

"But I thought the team performed really well. I thought it was really active from the beginning, put a lot of pressure on the opposition.

"Players are in good moments and they need minutes. They all did really well."

Having been unbeaten in their first six Premier League games this season (W2 D4), Everton have now lost their last two without scoring.

It was Everton boss Moyes' 400th defeat across all competitions in his managerial career. He has suffered 31 of those against Arsenal, more than against any other opponent.

The Toffees found themselves 1-0 down after just seven minutes, and Moyes felt the early goal made things too difficult for his side.

"[Going 1-0 down early] made it hard and we couldn't really get ourselves back into the game after that," Moyes told BBC Match of the Day.

"Huffed and puffed a little bit, stuck at it for long parts of the game, which was good. We never gave them anything easy but, in the end, we didn't have enough.

"We didn't do enough in an attacking sense, but we certainly did a really good job defensively, trying to make it difficult."