Arsenal have confirmed that 19-year-old midfielder Marcelo Flores has signed for Mexican side Tigres in a permanent deal.
Signed from Ipswich in 2019, Flores was tipped to break into the Arsenal first team but only got as far as the bench for a league fixture against Crystal Palace in April 2022.
By that point, Flores had already been capped by Mexico. Eligible for England and Canada, he jumped at the chance to represent the country of his father’s birth and made his debut as a substitute in a 2-2 draw with Chile. He has since made two further appearances.
✈️🇲🇽 ¡Pasajero con destino al actual Campeón de México! 💣🐯 ¡Bienvenido, @10marceloflores, a Tigres de la UANL!#PerfilTigre pic.twitter.com/DV6i4skFhq
— Club Tigres 🐯 (@TigresOficial) September 10, 2023
Last summer, Real Oviedo beat off competition from a host of other European sides to sign Flores on loan for the year. His spell in Spain’s second tier started brightly – he made 12 appearances before Christmas – but he fell out of favour in the second half of the season and played just 57 minutes of football between January and May.
Flores returned to London and featured for the under-21s in a pre-season friendly with Boreham Wood in August but despite an “encouraging performance” both club and player have agreed his career is better served by playing elsewhere.
Best of luck to him in Mexico, it’s an exciting move.
Good luck boy
I saw the title and thought he’d joined Hull City.
Maybe it’s not really the point, but do you think arsenal got any cash?
On one of Charles Watt’s recent YouTube videos he said £2m and a future sell on fee (exact % wasn’t specified).
Considering how badly we’ve sold in recent times that’s not too bad. Better than paying him off to leave at least.
In other words, we got a better deal here than Nicolas Pépé’s.
Wow. Kinda mad if we got more for him than Rob Holding..
I think Charles wasn’t definite on that and was speculating. I would be happy with that fee though.
There were two videos he did, Brendan Rodgers’ self-portrait, the first around mid last week Charles did speculate and say he was trying to find out the fee. He then did another video on Friday 8th where he said “I think like I said Arsenal are getting around £2m”.
Doesn’t come across the most definitive but it’s about as clear as Charles ever is! (I’m the same saying “I think” when is something I know. Wonder if is an English thing 😀)
Transfermarkt shows the fee at 815kEur. Not that bad, in my opinion.
That’s decent change given we only got 3mil for Pepe according to some sources
You mean “paid him 3m to leave”? 😂
It’s so nice to see female footballers transfer to male football teams. We are becoming better as a nation.
Here’s wishing you all the best, Flores.