Gabby Agbonlahor believes Nuno Tavares has wasted his chance to build a career at Arsenal following his poor form this season.
The Portugal Under-21 star was signed by the Gunners in the summer to act as a backup to Kieran Tierney.
The Scotsman is one of the best left-backs in the world, but he is injury-prone and the Gunners needed to sign someone that will play when he is unavailable.
Tavares has been brought in as his deputy, but he is not developing his game as fast as he needs to.
He had a torrid time in the match against Palace and Mikel Arteta hauled him off at halftime.
Former Aston Villa man, Agbonlahor believes the defender has no future at the club.
He tells Football Insider: “Tavares, I don’t think he’ll play again.
“He’s been dragged twice at half-time in the last couple of months. He didn’t look very good at all against Palace.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
Tavares has been a bad signing, but he wasn’t a player that most Arsenal fans were excited about when he joined the club.
We knew we only signed him because he was young and has potential, but he is proving unprepared to play when Tierney is unavailable.
It remains unclear if he would play again this season, but if he keeps struggling, then we need to sign another left-back as Tierney’s backup.
I’m sure there were folks on this site saying he should start ahead of Tierney a few months ago…
While his last few appearances have been dire, I think it would be harsh to consign him to the dustbin.
However when Tomiyasu is back, I’d prefer Cedric to shift to the right unless Tavares can find some of that form that made him look like a bargain before Xmas.
At least for the rest of this season, Brighton is probably the last chance saloon for him. Hopefully Swanson is giving Arteta something to think about in training.
And this is coming from the same mouth who praised Gerard for celebrating a win, cursed us for doing the same and then apologized to us – all from the same mouth. So having a few bad games, especially after being left to rust for two months means a 21yr old player has no future at the club? Martinelli should have long been thrown away then. Agbonlahor is clearly more deluded than I ever thought. I’m very disappointed to be honest
@dgr8xt
RealTalk…
Quite clear that you simply agree with anything written by someone who has broadly similar views to you.
The comments lack coherence even if one is to agree that Agbonlahor is one of the.poorer pundits out there.
Too early to write off Tavares just like that. He showed some flashes of brilliance at the start to the extent he played when Tierney sat the bench
What we need with him is patience and good coaching. He should be a test of the ability of our coaches to turn potential and talent into quality. I guess that’s a huge part of what they’re paid to do?