Mikel Arteta has claimed that summer signing Marquinhos will not leave Arsenal on loan, despite needing time to learn the language.
The Gunners moved to sign the 18 year-old for a lowly fee after his contract was deemed unacceptable by FIFA, but he is yet to feature for the senior side since the season began. He has found himself in form for the Under-21s however, scoring three goals in two outings.
Arteta now claims that he is happy with his new signing despite the fact that he is yet to learn English fully, before insisting that he wants to keep him in north London for the coming months.
“Very happy with him,” Arteta told reporters at his pre-match press conference. (Via Football.London). “He’s adapted really well. He’s a really likeable figure even if his language is not great yet. We’re gonna keep him here for another few months and make sure he establishes himself and then see what’s best for his development.”
Marquinhos has already made an impression since arriving, but he will obviously need time to settle in London and learn tye lingo.
He definitely is a future talent though, and it will be interesting to see if he is integrated into the first-team or if he is sent out on loan come January.
Patrick
Hadn’t seen those comment until now. He’s emergency 7 for the cups until after WC. Learns our way, learns English better… loan. New winger incoming when Pepe leaves for sure or the comment would be speaking on the year not the months.
Feel like I left Marquinhos a little unloved there, seen the youth team footage. Excited Martinelli type 2 and in fairness he’s lower risk than Martinelli. Similarly he’s shown just the same potential immediately. Like Martinelli give him time and space and he will shine.
Agreed Angus, he need time to develop and settle which includes learning the language. We have become very good at managing out top young stars and I trust the coaching team at Arsenal. I seem to remember it’s was very similar for Saliba, his communication skills weren’t to the level they should be fir the prem. We sent him on loan to not only develop as a player in a france, but also learn English as an extra curricular assignment with a private tutor. Look at where the lad is now full of confidence experience and his communication skills with his players are top notch
Interesting. That’s the first time I’ve heard that said about Saliba needing to improve his English, it could explain why the club wanted him to go to a Championship club rather than going back to France.
Picking up regional accents is a whole different ball game than classroom English – and then there’s all the accents of the foreign players speaking English as a second language… not easy.
Great decision by Mikel and the club, sometimes you just
need to throw the youngsters in the deep end and see
if they survive !! Defenders will be scared of him hopefully and he has the two Gabis with him in attack !!
After the world cup, I wonder if Brazil’s starting forward line will be coming home to North London 🙂
Neymar might have something to say about that though.
It would be interesting to see how commentators cope with 2 players called Marquinhos in one team (also the PSG defender).
OT (but related)
Reports that Arsenal has opened talks with Martinelli over a contract extension, although he has a while left to go (expires end June 2024 but the club has an option to extend by 1 year).