'Really struggled': Pundit says £34m Arsenal player was basically invisible against Sporting last night

By Charles Jones

Speaking on Virgin Media Sport, Richard Dunne has been discussing Arsenal’s performance against Sporting in the Europa League and Fabio Vieira’s showing in the game.

The Gunners put in one of their worst performances of the season on Thursday against Sporting.

They were held to a draw by the Portuguese side, but they looked very lethargic and lacked a real cutting edge during the game.

Dunne was far from impressed, and he highlighted one Arsenal player in particular as underperforming.

Indeed, Dunne says that Fabio Vieira really struggled during this game, claiming that the Portuguese midfielder was basically non-existent in this match.

Vieira struggled

Dunne gave his verdict on the £34m man.

“In the Europa League they never really reached the heights of the Premier League in their performances and when you play a team as good as Sporting you need your best team all the way through,” Dunne said.

“The likes of Vieira really struggled and he was non-existent in the game tonight and maybe a couple of others. When you play in this competition do you rest your players for this? Or for the Premier League? They’ll feel the tiredness after this because they’ve lost the game.”

Has to step up

Vieira was signed by Arsenal with a lot of hype behind him this summer, but sadly, he’s not really made the grade at the Emirates quite yet.

Of course, he’s only young and he has time on his side, but the fact of the matter is that he’s had very little impact since coming to England.

On Thursday he had the chance to make a real impression, but as Dunne says, he was basically invisible for most of the game, and you would’ve thought that this match would suit him seeing as it was against Portuguese opposition.

Fingers crossed Vieira can start to showcase his talents a bit more, because he’s falling behind where he should be at this point in time.