The former Spurs boss believes the Gunners made a mistake by choosing the Brazilian over the English veteran
Arsenal made a mistake in signing David Luiz and should have opted to snare ‘obvious choice’ Gary Cahill, according to Tim Sherwood.
The Gunners desperately needed defensive reinforcements and chose to ignore Chelsea veteran Cahill as an option – who was available early in the summer before signing with Crystal Palace on a free transfer.
Instead, Arsenal picked up another Blues centre-half – David Luiz – in a surprising £8 million ($10m) deal on deadline day.
With Unai Emery’s team still struggling in defence, having conceded 15 goals in 11 league matches, Sherwood was adamant the Gunners signed the wrong Chelsea central defender, despite the cheap deal for the Brazilian.
“Their problem was obvious to everybody. Not only the people who go to the Emirates, the people who watch Premier League football know that Arsenal cannot defend,” Sherwood told Premier League Productions.
“It wasn’t a hard job to go and find better defenders than what they already had. An easy job, just go out and do it. Try and patch it up, find something.
“Gary Cahill, he was an obvious choice. We’re talking about someone who’s a Premier League winner, a leader-type character, and they end up going and getting David Luiz.
“Now, I agree, good value [for] David Luiz, but go and find someone better.
“They needed to do that, they haven’t done it, the recruitment’s terrible, and at the moment they’re getting results that they deserve.”
Arsenal sit fifth in the league – six points behind fourth-placed Chelsea – and have failed to win their last three matches in the competition, including home draws against Palace and Wolves.
Sherwood admitted he felt pre-season that the Gunners’ stars in attack would help carry the team through the season, but now it was evident that their defence would not be able to stand up.
“I always felt at the beginning of the season, when I looked at [Alexandre] Lacazette, [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang, [Mesut] Ozil, [Bukayo] Saka who they brought in, they brought [Nicolas] Pepe in, that they might have enough firepower,” he said.
“But unfortunately you can’t score four goals to win every football match, especially when you defend like that.”
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