Arsenal have today announced that Nuno Tavares has left the club on a temporary basis.
The Gunners revealed via Twitter that the Portuguese left-back has joined Marseille on a season-long loan arrangement.
Tavares had a mixed first season at Arsenal last term, following a 2021 summer transfer from Benfica.
In attack, the 22-year-old demonstrated a lot of frightening speed and trickery but, in defence, he was found wanting on quite a few occasions.
And Sky Sports journalist Sam Blitz has intimated that Mikel Arteta didn’t entirely trust the young bullet in spite of his dazzling qualities.
He told Sky Sports News: “It was unlikely that Nuno Tavares was going to usurp Kieran Tierney in the left-back position. In fact, Tavares wasn’t probably expected to play as many as 28 times last season. The Portuguese defender looked promising in places but individual errors let him down. There’s not quite the same trust in Tavares that other fringe players at Arsenal have.”
The arrival of Oleksandr Zinchenko pretty much consigned Tavares to a summer exit, with the former Manchester City star also capable of playing left-back.
However, Kieran Tierney, talented as he may be, is also a tad injury prone and that means Arsenal are still only one injury to him away from being a little compromised in this position and maybe, just maybe, keeping Tavares would’ve been a wiser decision.
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