Arteta gives his thoughts on Hincapie’s 1st league start | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta was delighted with Piero Hincapie’s performance on his first Premier League start on Sunday, admitting it’s not easy to fill Gabriel Magalhaes’ boots.

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Given his injury shortly after joining Arsenal this summer, Piero Hincapie was always going to face a bit of a wait to get chances in the Gunners’ starting lineup.

Even when the Bayer Leverkusen loanee got fit again, he faced a battle for starts against Riccardo Calafiori and Gabriel Magalhaes, both of whom had made an excellent start to the campaign.

Fellow summer signing Cristhian Mosquera had also impressed in a few appearances, potentially pushing Hincapie further down the pecking order.

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Yet things quickly changed with the confirmation of Gabriel’s injury over the international break.

Arsenal needed someone to step into a starting role, and Hincapie was the logical choice, allowing Calafiori to remain at left-back and Mosquera to remain an alternative to William Saliba at right-centre-back.

The big catch was that Hincapie was yet to start a Premier League fixture for the Gunners, and he had to kick things off with a north London derby match against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

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Thankfully, it all went pretty well. Though Arsenal didn’t keep a clean sheet due to a freak long-range effort from Richarlison, Spurs definitely struggled to create good chances, and the Gunners won the match 4-1.

Speaking on Tuesday, Mikel Arteta praised Hincapie for stepping up, particuarly as a replacement for one of Arsenal’s players of the season so far in Gabriel.

“Big credit to Piero [Hincapie], because that’s a massive challenge, to have your Premier League debut starting against your biggest rivals in a really special day against top players up front, to replace Gabi,” Arteta said.

“It’s not easy at all, he did it in a really convincing way, that’s his personality. As I said before, he’s a warrior, he’s somebody that faces any challenge, and he certainly did that on Sunday.”

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The task now is to keep up that same level for Wednesday night’s game against Champions League leaders Bayern Munich, then again for Sunday’s game away to 2nd-placed Premier League side Chelsea.

If Arsenal can continue to show strong defensive form across those two matches, it will certainly build a lot of confidence for the next month without Gabriel.