Arsenal hero Nigel Winterburn has praised management for securing Gabriel Magalhaes to a new contract.

The Brazil international, now in his third season with the Gunners, has been rewarded for his progress with a new five-year contract, which he inked a fortnight ago.

Winterburn has watched Gabriel's development closely over these past three seasons and says the new agreement is deserved.

Speaking to Tribalfootball.com, on behalf of FreeSuperTips, Winterburn stated: "I think he does deserve the new contract, otherwise it suggests you've got no trust in the player.

"He's a player who is very aggressive and at times he wants to be too aggressive, but he's got great desire and a good understanding with (William) Saliba.

"They might be making one or two individual errors between them, but I think with experience they'll cut out those little mistakes."

Indeed, Winterburn believes manager Mikel Arteta has found his first-choice central defensive pairing in Gabriel and Saliba, who both came to Arsenal from Ligue Une.

He continued: "They'll know and get to understand each other the more they play together, but how can you criticise a team or individual players when your team is sitting top of the league.

"Everybody makes mistakes, it's how you respond to those mistakes and how you limit the amount of them throughout the course of a season.

"That's where defenders are judged, they're judged on their consistency, and I don't see any issue with Gabriel because he's been a very decent player for the club."

With the likes of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe also seeing their contracts running down, Winterburn says it's crucial management continue to work on securing the core of the team to new deals.

He added: "Arsenal need to tie down all these players at this moment in time whose contracts are getting close to renewal because we don't want to lost anybody."