Arsenal recently defeated Manchester United in the Premier League but still there were questions around some of their players and their performances. Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes during his analysis of the game questioned Arsenal fullback Nuno Tavares’ defensive abilities.
The Portuguese fullback scored the opening goal in Arsenal’s 3-1 win over the Red Devils at the Emirates. He opened the scoring within three minutes and sent the entire stadium into frenzy.
While he looked great going forward there are defensives woes that were visible from the Arsenal left back. Paul Scholes also indicated the same as he spoke about the Portuguese youngster.
“Tavares is a quick player. Okay going forward, but defensively he’s very, very suspect,” Scholes told HITC Sport.
“It’s very similar to Manchester United. Both fullbacks aren’t great defensively,” he added.
Tavares joined Arsenal from Benfica and his exceptional pace and ability to attack from the flanks did impress the Arsenal faithful and even Mikel Arteta. But with Kieran Tierney settling in that left back and gaining tremendous form, Tavares went down the pecking order. He did not play much from December to April until Tierney suffered a season ending injury.
Tavares has shown that he can be a liability at the back just like when he was taken off in Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat against Crystal Palace and was deemed responsible for two goals out of three that they conceded.
But the Portugal U21 has ultimate trust from his manager Mikel Arteta. The Spanish tactician believes that the youngster is just learning his traits and will have to improve. He requested the Arsenal fans to show him their support.
“We have to help him. He needs to go through these experiences to understand, OK what trigged that moment, when you go from here to there – and give him support,” Arteta told The Metro.
“We know, I’ve said this many times, the bill that you have to pay with these players is that they have never experienced this,” he added.
He feels that Tavares will be making many mistakes in the coming matches and it will be easy to blame him for those mistakes but if the fans support him he will get better in no time. “So they are going to make mistakes, and they are going to make decisions that – from here it’s very easy to say “why have you done that?” But they are there on the pitch, and let’s give them support because they need it,” Arteta concluded.
