Arsenal manager, Unai Emery has explained why he did not feature the club's new signing, David Luiz, in his side's Premier League 1-0 victory over Newcastle United on Sunday.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang netted a second-half winner as the Gunners got their Premier League season off to a winning start.
Luiz, who joined Arsenal from Chelsea on transfer deadline day last Thursday in an £8million deal, was forced to watch from the bench on Sunday.
But Emery is now saying that the Brazilian international did not play against Newcastle because of the pre-season form of Calum Chambers and Sokratis Papastathopoulos.
"Last year for Calum Chambers was a very good year," Emery was quoted by Metro UK as saying.
"He played all the matches with Fulham, he played centre-back in a three and two, as a defensive midfielder.
"In the pre-season he deserved to play today. He was very focused and with Sokratis as well, very serious.
"I want to have very competitive players in each position, with David Luiz, with [Rob] Holding when he is coming to help us, training regularly and playing minutes.
"He is going to play tomorrow (Monday) for the Under-23s.
"Also Hector Bellerin is coming back, I think one month more.
"Today we had Sead [Kolasinac] out and Kieran Tierney injured. We want to be strong defensively but above all being an offensive team."
"The circumstances are different. First David Luiz had a pre-season with another team and is OK to play physically, but only trained with us completely [on Saturday].
"On Friday he only trained for 30 minutes.
"I was thinking of giving Sokratis and Chambers confidence because they were working well."
Luiz will hope to play for Arsenal when they tackle Burnley in their next Premier League fixture at the Emirates Stadium on August 17.
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