Arsenal defender Nuno Tavares has faced some ‘questions around his attitude’ at Marseille, journalist Dean Jones has informed GIVEMESPORT.
The 23-year-old joined the Gunners in 2021 for a fee of £8 million and completed a loan move to the Ligue 1 giants last year for the entirety of the 2022/23 season.
Arsenal latest news – Nuno Tavares
Earlier this month, French outlet L’Équipe via GOAL revealed that Tavares was kicked out of a training session by Marseille coach Igor Tudor for a perceived ‘lack of effort’.
The 44-year-old pulled no punches when speaking about the incident in which Jonathan Clauss was also reprimanded, stating: “In my football, there is a feature, you have to run. And if you don’t… If I see one player that doesn’t run in training, I’ll say it once, twice and then on the third time of asking, I’ll intervene.”
Despite his misdemeanour in training, Tavares went on to feature for Les Olympiens for the full 90 minutes in their last two fixtures against Montpellier and Lorient and will likely continue to be a key player for the French side between now and the end of the season.
The £27k-a-week ace has made 34 appearances in all competitions this campaign, scoring on six occasions, as per Transfermarkt.
What has Dean Jones said about Nuno Tavares?
Journalist Jones thinks that the current situation that has surrounded Tavares at Marseille is ‘not ideal’ and is keen to see what will happen with his future with Arsenal in the summer.
Jones told GMS: “It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the summer with him. I mean, typically, what happens with Tavares is he makes a big initial impact and then fades. It happened at Arsenal and it’s happened again out on loan at Marseille. Now, there are questions around his attitude in France, so it’s not ideal.”
Can Nuno Tavares force his way back into Mikel Arteta’s plans next season?
Undoubtedly, Tavares does offer something distinguishable from an attacking standpoint to Arsenal; however, he would probably need some further positional refinement before being able to start regularly at the Emirates Stadium.
Oleksandr Zinchenko is the clear first choice for the Gunners in the left-back role, though Kieran Tierney has been linked with a move elsewhere this summer, which could open up a slot for Tavares to compete for first-team minutes.
FBRef shows that Tavares compares well to his positional peers across Europe’s top five divisions for shots taken on goal, as he ranks in the top 1% with 2.25 per match across the last 365 days.
Moving forward, it will be interesting to see whether Arsenal do have any plans to re-integrate the 23-year-old into the squad come the 2023/24 campaign.
