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Arsenal vs Burnley: How summer transfers Dani Ceballos, David Luiz and Nicolas Pepe fared

Unai Emery used three of his summer signings in the 2-1 win over Burnley

Luke Brown
Saturday 17 August 2019 14:09 BST
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Unai Emery on Arsenal's new signings

Arsenal saw off Burnley at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday to maintain their perfect start to the new Premier League campaign – in a match that saw Unai Emery hand David Luiz and Dani Ceballos their full debuts.

Bargain signing Luiz was selected to start alongside Sokratis Papastathopoulos in a four-man defence, with Real Madrid loanee Ceballos picked at the top of Arsenal’s midfield, in between youngsters Reiss Nelson and Joe Willock.

Both impressed for Arsenal, with Luiz immediately bolstering the club’s defence and Ceballos assisting both goals.

There was also an appearance for club-record signing Nicolas Pépé, who came off the bench to replace Nelson at half-time.

Here is what we made of Arsenal’s new boys.

David Luiz

David Luiz had a fine game

The 32-year-old made a confident start to his Arsenal debut and quickly began dictating the rhythm of Arsenal’s play from the heart of defence. He moved the ball around well and was quick to attempt a long diagonal over the top for Arsenal’s forward to chase: a key feature of his play at Chelsea.

But he will be disappointed with Burnley’s equalising goal. It was by no means his fault – and Ashley Barnes did benefit from a kind deflection before prodding the ball beyond Bernd Leno – but rather the result of some generally slack positioning from Arsenal’s defenders.

The Brazilian has his work cut out helping to sort this defence out.

Luiz had an encouragingly quiet second-half as Arsenal fought back to win. He will be proud of his debut performance and already looks a fine signing – particularly if he is well protected by Lucas Torreira and Mattéo Guendouzi, as he was today.

Grade: B

Dani Ceballos

The Spaniard assisted both goals

A superb performance. Ceballos looks like he is something special.

The Spaniard was a lively presence in the centre of Arsenal’s midfield – deployed just behind Pierre-Emerick Aubabeyang and Alexandre Lacazette – and created a number of good chances for the duo. Early on he found the Frenchman in space at the near post with a perfectly weighted pass, while his corner led to the opening goal.

He played a far greater part in Arsenal’s second. Ceballos caught Jóhann Berg Guðmundsson dawdling in possession, snapping the ball away from him and immediately releasing Aubameyang, who strode forward and finished speculatively.

It was an extremely encouraging performance from the 23-year-old Real Madrid player, who was named Man of the Match.

Grade: A

Nicolas Pépé

The club-record signing came on at half-time

Unai Emery threw club-record signing Pépé on at half-time, in an attempt to turn this match around. Arsenal successfully did so, but in truth that had little to do with their £72m man.

This was another relatively quiet cameo from the 24-year-old winger. He had some nice touches, and combined nicely with Ainsley Maitland-Niles, but the fireworks will come later.

He did go close to setting up Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with the score at 1-1, only for Nick Pope to beat the striker’s shot away.

And he should really have set up the striker in injury time, only to underhit a simple pass when in a two-on-one counter-attack.

Grade: C

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