After departing Leicester at the end of his contract in 2022-23, Youri Tielemens was one of the finest free agentson the summer transfer market. Many thought the Belgian would push for a move to join Arteta’s project, considering that in the summer of 2022, he was heavily linked with a switch to the Emirates, with headlines such as “Premier League star tells friends his preference is to play for Arsenal” and “Midfield target claimed to be ‘waiting for an offer from Arsenal.”
It is not news that the 26-year-old joined Aston Villa on a free transfer. He didn’t even bother to see if Arsenal would rekindle their interest in him. The ex-Leicester City man has yet to have the greatest of times at Villa Park; he hasn’t been used as the main guy he hoped to have joined them as; he has been demoted to substitute appearances. This role isn’t what he imagined, and he’s expressed his dissatisfaction and, to some part, regret over moving to Villa, saying on Belgian site DH, “The situation is not pleasant.”
“I told the manager that I came to Villa to play. He understands me, but at the moment, he prefers to play with the two midfielders from last season. He told me that soon there will be a succession of games, and I’ll get more playing time.
“I know that answer doesn’t get me anywhere, but what should I do? As soon as I get the opportunity, I want to take it. So far, I’ve started once in the Conference League.”
Given the Belgian’s claims, don’t you suppose he’s questioning why he didn’t join another club, most likely Arsenal? If I were to advise him before he left Leicester, I’d tell him it’s better to be a bench player at Arsenal than a bench player at Villa, don’t you think?
Darren N
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We were never in for him
What logics tells you that he would play more for a better team? Hes just high on himself. If he wanted to play all matches he should have joined Luton.
The article is wrong!!!! In the summer of 2022 Arsenal had agreed in principle through 3rd party agents a deal with Tielemans to join. Leicester wanted far too much money and wouldn’t play ball. The smmer of 2023, Arsenal did not approach Tielemans. It wasn’t about Tielemans approaching Arsenal. Arsenal had moved on to other targets. And ultimately we ended up with Haverz.
We did’nt “ended up” with Havertz dawg. Havertz was MA’s prime target, Tielemans is a totally different profile player to consider Havertz as his alternative.
Wrong Vamos. Havertz deal was never planned in advance! It came out of the blue ’cause everyone expected him to stay at Chelsea until next year at least. The deal was deemed “too good” to ignore by Arteta as per The Athletic. Based on what I’ve read, there was no prior planning for Havertz, he became available on short notice and we stopped everything else and went all in. I might be wrong but that’s the information thats out there.
Vamos, you are spouting stuff that is wrong. That may be your opinion and i resect that but that is wrong. It would probably upset you to know, we were in for Mount before Haverz but Mount let it be known that he wanted utd. Haverz was made known to us he was available and we took the bait.
He’s a strange player. I think he’s got a huge amount of talent but needs to be motivated externally (by the manager and coaches, rather from himself). I suspect he’d have done very well for Liverpool, at least for a while, but would have been a poor signing for us.
Not really sure why he would be happier sitting on our bench rather than Villa’s, unless he might have been on more money. Having said that, I think he would be happy to be in any team in the PL if he was actually playing, not that I think we were ever interested in him.