When Arsenal signed Pablo Marí from Flamengo for £7.2m on loan before spending a further £5.4m to make the move permanent, many eyebrows were raised.
After all, there were valid questions over whether the centre-back would have the required standard to feature regularly for the Gunners, and those were answered fairly quickly.
The now 28-year-old only ever made 22 appearances for Arsenal in all competitions, scoring the one goal, and, with little opportunity on offer under Mikel Arteta this season, was sent on loan to Udinese for the second half of the season.
He’s immediately impressed there, which is why Gazzetta dello Sport sat down to interview him on Tuesday to talk about his time so far in Serie A and what happened at Arsenal.
While he’s ‘very well’ with the Udine side, he does admit that he still has two years on his contract at the Emirates, which means that a permanent transfer would be difficult, at least financially.
He was then asked about the fact he spent time in both Spain and Brazil, to which he replied: “You can’t say no to Flamengo, just like Arsenal. We’re talking about top clubs in the world. It helped that I left home early and have a special wife, Veronica, who’s five years older than me and with whom I had Pablo Jr., who is now four years old.”
Then came the classic question of what he thought about Mikel Arteta, who has managed to turn things around at Arsenal of late if you ignore their last two results.
Marí said: “A great manager, as was Jorge Jesus at Flamengo. I’ve had excellent teachers.”
