Whatever happened to Gabriel Paulista?

On 26 January 2015, Gabriel was granted a UK work permit allowing him to join Arsenal.  The fee was around £11m with Joel Campbell moving on loan to Villareal.   Unusually for a player of some stature he spoke no English at the time of his transfer, and from stories that emerged later, failed to learn the language while at Arsenal.

He is particularly remembered for the events on 19 September 2015 when he was one of two Arsenal players sent off in a match against Chelsea.  His dismissal was appealed and withdrawn but he was fined £10k and banned for one game for not leaving the pitch immediately, despite being sent off for no reason at all.

The lack of English was mentioned when on 18 August 2017, Gabriel  left Arsenal to return to Valencia.

Here are the anniversaries.

 

28 January 1888: Royal Arsenal 6 Champion Hill 0.  There’s no record of Champion Hill FC, although Dulwich Hamlet moved to the Champion Hill ground in Southwark in 1912.  Dulwich Hamlet was formed in 1893, and it is possible that this match was between Arsenal and the club that preceded Dulwich Hamlet.

28 January 1899: Arsenal 0 Derby 6,  FA Cup. A reminder that Arsenal were a long way short of the standard in the first division (despite scoring six themselves on three separate occasions in the League)..

28 January 1911: Raymond Parkin born in Crook, County Durham.  He started his career in 1926 as an amateur, with Esh Winning FC and was considered one of the leading amateur teams and also played as an England schoolboy international during this spell.  He signed first for Newcastle in 1926 but moved to Arsenal two years later

28 January 1918: It is often forgotten that in the first world war there was considerable bombing of London by enemy aircraft, and on this day London experienced its heaviest bombing of the war. Highbury escaped undamaged.

28 January 1931: Arsenal’s biggest win at Highbury.  Arsenal 9 Grimsby 1. Four from David Jack and three from Jack Lambert.  The crowd was 15,751, the lowest home crowd of the season.

28 January 1950: Arsenal 2 Swansea 1, FA Cup 4th round, en route to Wembley.  Goals from Logie and Barnes (a penalty) saw Arsenal through. This was the first season Arsenal played all their FA Cup games in London.

28 January 1978: Four days after reaching the semi-finals of the League Cup Arsenal beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1, with 49,373 in attendance to reach the 5th round of the league cup.  Sunderland and Macdonald scored.

28 January 1998: Arsenal 2 Chelsea 1 (Coca Cola cup semi, first leg).  Overmars and Hughes got the goals.

28 January 2004: Jose Antonio Reyes transferred from Sevilla for £10.5m.  He later played over 100 games for Atletico Madrid and Sevilla having played 69 for Arsenal.  On 1 June 2019, Reyes died at the age of 35 following a car accident.  Early reports that the car had been traveling at 135mph were disputed.

28 January 2011: Carlos Vela loaned to WBA.  He had shown moments of brilliance, but never quite made it at Arsenal.

28 January 2015: Arsenal announced the signing of Brazilian defender Gabriel Paulista from the La Liga side Villarreal, for an undisclosed fee, reported £11.2m

28 January 2017: Just two months after Southampton had knocked Arsenal out of the League Cup, Arsenal beat Southampton 0-5 away in the 4th round of the FA Cup on their way to their third FA Cup triumph in four years.  It was one of two FA Cup matches this season in which Arsenal scored five goals.

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