David Luiz is determined to help Arsenal rise to the top once again after taking the difficult decision to leave Chelsea this summer. The 32-year-old made his debut in Saturday’s 2-1 Premier League win over Burnley having swapped west London for north London, and showed that he could turn out be a very shrewd acquisition for Gunners boss Unai Emery.
New Chelsea boss Frank Lampard, who had played alongside Luiz at Stamford Bridge, allowed the Brazil international to leave as he was not part of his plans, and Chelsea’s loss could turn out to be very much Arsenal’s gain.
Luiz was warmly welcomed to the Emirates Stadium as goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang proved enough to see off Burnley, who had equalised through in-form Ashley Barnes.
The Gunners have been in need of a new central defender for some time and spent most of the summer searching for one. It turns out the answer was right under their nose.
Luiz is expected to become a big part of Emery’s plans for the campaign, playing alongside Sokratis Papastathopoulos as he did at the weekend, and the South American is raring to go for a new chapter in his career.
It could have been easy to stay with Chelsea, but Luiz wanted the challenge and jumped at the chance to head to the Emirates Stadium.
Luiz’s last game for Chelsea was last season’s 4-1 Europa League final win over his new employers as the former Paris Saint-Germain defender lifted his sixth major honour in two spells at the club.
Now he wants to use his experience to help Arsenal get back amongst the elite – and feels it is all about the squad having belief in their capabilities to do so.
“In life you have to believe, if you don’t try things you are never going to know if you can do it or not,” he said. “My philosophy on life is to be positive and to be a dreamer. But understand to dream is one thing and to achieve your dream you have a lot to do.
“I have my health, I can dream and we can fight for something big. That is always going to be my speech to everyone – it is possible for us and everybody. “It is up to the team, the team is going to dream more, the team is going to prepare better, understand the game and that is it.”
