Reports in Portugal suggest that Nuno Tavares is on the radar of both Werder Bremen and Wolfsburg.
The 23 year old is surplus to requirements at Arsenal, and with the club keen to trim down the squad, interest from Germany in the Portuguese defender will be welcome news.
Tavares spent last season on loan at Marseille, initially impressing with some typically chaotic but effective attacking displays, and by New Year’s Day had scored 5 of the 6 goals he would eventually rack up.
The second half of the campaign wasn’t quite as good, and there were rumours of difficulties with coach Igor Tudor, but in total he made 39 appearances for the Ligue 1 side – making him one of our more successful loan players.
This summer he was involved in the European U21 Championships, and has yet to feature – but with the likes of Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jurrien Timber, Jakub Kiwior, Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu ahead of him in the pecking order, his departure seems inevitable.
O Jogo suggest Arsenal are looking for a fee of around €15m for a player who cost €7m from Benfica in the summer of 2021.
Meanwhile, the future of Kieran Tierney is up for discussion again, with reports of a loan offer from Real Sociedad – the team based in Mikel Arteta’s home town of San Sebastian.
Having been linked heavily with Newcastle earlier in the summer, no firm offer has materialised from the north-east, or any other Premier League club thus far.
There are still three weeks to go in the window, so a lot can happen, but it would be a bit of a surprise to see him go abroad given his well-documented issues with homesickness while in London.
He is better than Mudryk for sure
Behave.
Mudryk is an out and out left winger and infinitely better than Tavares.
Tavares is (supposed to be) a left back – but thinks he’s Roy of The Rovers (ask your Dad).
A left back who should be left anywhere but on the pitch. He’s an accident waiting to happen and a scatterbrained liability – and I am so done with those.
Sell sell sell.
You should both behave.
Good luck to him.
I think most people on this site should probably ask their Grandad….
I liked the Roy of The Rovers strip so much. It used to appear in my vernacular language news paper in the 90s, along with The Phantom, and I earnestly looked forward to check them after coming back from school.
I clean forgot about Taveres. Hope he gets a good move. Would like to hold on to Tierney, lots of games next season (possibly longer games with added on time), so depth is key. He’s a solid player.
He is but we seem to have about 5 options in that position and at least 3 are preferred to him
KT offers something different though – our old-school overlapper with a decent cross. In fact – they all offer something different: Zinny’s our go-to inverter with his pitch-coverage first-time passing and ability to play through the lines. Timber’s our alternative inverter with strong enforcer/destroyer skills. Tomi’s our go-to close-out man with his man-to-man defending and aerial prowess. Jukub’s primarily our Big Gabi alternative but – regardless of whether he plays at LCB or LB – gives us a quarterback-like deep-playmaker option. Of course, five players who can play LB is excessive and KT is probably the most disposible – it’d… Read more »
It’s a sign of progress when you are excited about both the purchase and the sale of the same player.
I don’t want to see a sad KT on the bench. It hurts my heart too much.
Same. He’s just so good. I hope he gets a move back to Celtic for his own sake but I hope he will have fond memories of Arsenal.
Given the right system and a coach who can iron out his flaws, he has the potential to be a decent winger (not even wing-back, but legit winger) for a top-tier side of a decent league such as the Bundesliga. Obviously, the more the better, but if we can get €15m for him, we’ve done OK.
Man, buying players is precarious. Chaotic is really a good description of Tavares. Good luck to him. Tierney is a much better footballer, however, he just lacks that ability to operate in midfield that Arteta values for a left back. The proof is really he and Andy Robertson in the Scottish National team. Tierney is moved to CB to make room and covers when Robertson goes forward and takes up positions in midfield. Tierney is excellent but simply can’t play in Arteta’s system as we, he or Arteta would like him to. I really hope he moves on to where… Read more »
Agree, as much i would like Keiran to have succeeded his game play is not his fault as he’s a very good player but not the type we need, bolting up from LB to swing in a ball is impressive in the Scottish league but not in this league, he would always pass back in to centre holding as he could see there wasn’t options, likelihood a return to Celtic for a £10 mil fee.
I think our transfer situation is rather polarising. We have some elite level players that we can’t sell to remain competitive and a bunch of players that have for differing reasons failed to produce for us and thus no one really wants. The likes of Holding, Pepe, Tavares, Tierney, Nketiah, Lokonga, Elneny, Cedric are just really not attractive options for teams. You could even throw in Vieira and Marquinhos. No one really wants to spend money on these players and pay their higher than average wages. What is frustrating is that foreign teams in Italy, Turkey and France that might… Read more »
That’s failing a bit to acknowledge the economic situations of some of those teams and leagues. A lot of cluba would love to have Nketiah, Tierney or Vieira, those are all players who have proven they can play and contribute to winning at the top level, maybe not yet at the consistency Arsenal or other top clubs require to be first choice but for sure good enough to start for a mid table side in one of top European leagues. The problem is those teams could only afford a 30-40mil outlay maybe once in a few years and only on… Read more »
I think we tend to hold onto players that we deem not good enough a tad bit longer than we ought to while the market is brutality overzealous at depreciating their value.
Though this has likely been necesitated by our lack of credible squad depth in the past, it kinda feels like we went overboard in attempting to shed the ‘selling club’ tag of the recent past.
Hopefully we’ll be more decisive and efficient at player sale now that we’ve fairly addressed the depth issue.
I agree. Our transfer record has been 50:50 in the Arteta era. For every Timber, a willian etc. Amd we simply can’t shift them for decent money.
Good luck Nuno!
I know the narrative is that Tierney doesn’t fit in Arteta’s system, but after preseason I do think that we will deploy multiple systems this season depending on game state. Going to three at the back when we’re chasing the game like we did at the end of the Community Shield, for example, suits KT. I hope we don’t have to do it a lot but nice to know we have someone of his quality to step in when we do!
Hmmm, that Tierney that ended up on his arse as the goal went in. I think we’ve moved on from Tierney. I don’t think he’s really that good, and he’s one of those bloody annoying players who get forward and cross the ball to nobody instead of looking up to see what’s going on.
As we’re picking isolated incidents in preseason matches to prove a point, you mean crosses like the one he put on a plate for Leo to slot in on the volley against Barca?
Hmmm
We need to move him on before we lose more money on a potential sale. Just not a fit anymore.
Absolutely agree r.e. San Sebastián Blogs, if Tierney does choose a move back to Glasgow over the Bay of Biscay then I do seriously worry for the man’s mental health somewhat
Anywhere near 15m € for Nuno would be a great sale. He’s never going to play for us again, but we would make money for a change.
I’d much rather see Nuno as a left-sided attacker than defender, but we’re pretty well stocked in that position, too.
It annoys me when reporters outside of the club claim to know the club. All our left backs are surplus to requirement the way the club is run. No defensive awareness and it needs to change.
If West Ham can sign Masuaku, then they can definitely get Tavares.
Hope he fares better there than he did for us and in League 1.
Meantime i take news of a possible Partey sale with a more than little trepidation. Injuries notwithstanding, Partey when fit is a hell of a defensive midfielder and we’ll be losing a great first team regular.
If he’s going for 50+ million it probably balances out albeit grudgingly. Even at his age he’s easily an 80M player.
If less than 50M can we not sell him please?