£8m player highly unlikely to ever play for Arsenal again - journalist

By Sam Preston

Journalist Ben Jacobs expects Nuno Tavares to leave Arsenal this summer but says Marseille are not convinced about buying him.

Jacobs told TeamTALK that Tavares, who is currently on loan in France with the Ligue 1 outfit, has seemingly played his last game for the Gunners.

He says Mikel Arteta has other options at left-back which he prefers to Tavares, even though there are doubts over the future of Kieran Tierney.

The Gunners can make a profit on the man Arteta only signed in the summer of 2021, having landed Alex Zinchenko the year after.

Journalist Ben Jacobs expects Arsenal to sell Nuno Tavares this summer

Jacobs said: ““With Tavares I think it’s very unlikely that he’ll play for Arsenal again. Zinchenko, Tierney, at the moment, is still there, Tomiyasu there, as well. Arsenal can probably, if not definitely get a profit off him because he’s only 23 years of age and the fee that Arsenal paid in 2021 for Tavares was only £8 million.

“That means that if they do choose to sell him, they’ll be able to cash in and make a tidy profit, which will reflect well on their books, on Financial Fair Play and provide an opportunity to clear some squad space in order to no doubt bolster in other positions.

“Arsenal’s concern, in my view, is around those defensive qualities, whereas what he’s showing at Marseille is that he can be very enterprising from an attacking point of view. Interestingly, even Marseille aren’t sure about the player for that very reason.

“They understand what he can bring from an attacking point of view but are worried about the defensive output. So my feeling is that Tavares will go but it’s not guaranteed that Marseille will come in and want to try and make that signing a permanent one, even though he’s basically got a goal in every three or four games that he’s played.”

Tavares showed signs of his qualities last season, especially going forward, but he is also very raw and hit a nadir at Nottingham Forest in January 2022.

Perhaps if Tierney want, the defender could become Zinchenko’s understudy, but at just 23, he is likely to want to be somewhere he is playing again.

Arsenal need to get rid of unwanted players to balance the books as they embark on a summer where they will need to get their squad ready for next season’s Champions League.