Ian Wright slammed Nuno Tavares for his ‘disrespectful’ reaction to being substituted during Arsenal’s 1-0 FA Cup defeat to Nottingham Forest on Sunday.
The former striker called out the left-back on ITV during their live coverage by stating Mikel Arteta ‘won’t like’ the player throwing his gloves to the ground.
In the first half, Tavares produced a number of error-prone moments, including his wayward back pass to Bernd Leno going out for a corner.
It was a pretty poor performance from the club’s summer signing and Arteta had enough with what he was seeing from the 21-year-old.
As a result, after 35 minutes, Kieran Tierney was brought on for Tavares and the player reacted in an angry manner when walking off and taking his seat in the dugout.
Wright didn’t like what he was seeing from the player and made his feelings clear on the matter.
“If you are on the other side, the manager may say ‘let me see what his reaction is like’,” said Wright.
“He started very poorly. With that one (his back pass to Leno that went for a corner). It was a bad back pass.
“With this one “(losing the ball in Forest’s half), you look at his reaction.
Then, he is coming off and throws his gloves down. This is the wrong manager to do that with. He’s showing that kind of attitude. I think the disrespect he is showing, at the minute, is something that Mikel Arteta won’t like. He should be acting better with the performance he has put in.”
Arteta has previously shown that if someone steps out of line with him, then he will discipline those individuals.
The question remains whether he will do that with Tavares because Arteta didn’t look like a happy man on the sidelines.
But that would be the last thing on his mind because Arsenal are now out of the FA Cup.
This puts huge pressure on the team and their quest to get back into Europe via the Premier League, also that semi-final clash against Liverpool in the EFL Cup becomes even more important.
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