According to The Express, Marquinhos is set to spend the upcoming season on loan with Greek side Olympiacos.
Signed from Sao Paulo for £3 million last summer, the 20-year-old was earmarked as a long-term project but quickly found himself integrated into Mikel Arteta’s first team squad. He made an instant impact on his debut scoring and assisting in the Europa League as the Gunners beat FC Zurich away from home.
Some decent performances for the under-21s aside, it was about as good as it got for him on the Arsenal front and come January he was sent to Norwich to get more experience of senior football.
It’s fair to say the Canaries were hoping for a bit more from the winger, especially after he scored and assisted on his debut against Cardiff.
10 further appearances were largely underwhelming although that didn’t stop his country from calling him up for the Under-20 World Cup that took place immediately after the domestic season ended.
Since Reiss Nelson penned new terms, a second loan for Marquinhos has always looked likely.
Time will tell whether Olympiacos is a good fit or not. They do have a couple of other Brazilians on the books, which should help our boy settle, but at the same time, you question the stability of any environment that includes their owner Evangelos Marinakis.
According to reports this morning, the Greek businessman’s other club, Nottingham Forest, owes millions in overdue payments to players and agents that could potentially lead to a winding up petition against the club.
Olympiacos finished third in the Greek Super League last season and are looking to strengthen their attack ahead of a tricky Europa League qualifier with Belgian side Genk. Their domestic campaign starts in just over three weeks.
Elsewhere, Sheffield United are expected to wrap up a £5 million deal for Auston Trusty and Besiktas are showing interest in Nicolas Pepe.
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Update: French publication Ouest-France claims Ligue 1 side Nantes are also monitoring Marquinhos’ situation.
This move I don’t understand. Why not send him to Germany or to a team here?
Imagine nobody suitable wants him…our loan department have worked fairly strategically in recent years
That’s true. Too bad we couldn’t extract value after strategic loans, but Saliba, ESR or Trusty were very well-managed, and we almost always found solutions for players like Bellerin, Cedric, AMN or Lokonga when they had no part to play at the club.
My question would be more to the Junior team coaches in general – do you guys have any KRA or KPI by which your performance is measured? Perhaps Georgebird can answer this Question?
Marquinhos, the new Chuba Akpom
For people downvoting, are you aware that Akpom went to Greece, played well, earned a move to the Championship and is tearing it up at Middlesborough?
Chuba blowing his own trumpet?
Chuba gets the horn
At the very least the food scene will be better than Norwich. Here’s to some tasty souvlakinhos and moussakinhos, both on and off the pitch
Nah…Marseille would have been better… their recruitment policy is that the player must have Arsenal in his CV