Most football enthusiasts who watched Portugal’s 4-2 victory over Finland have said the same thing: “Joao Neves is a star midfielder in the making.”
As you can see below, in the 90 minutes he was on the pitch Tuesday night, the Benfica midfield prodigy shone.
Joao Neves vs. Finland
~113 touches
~101 passes (96%)
~3/3 dribbles completed
~1 chance created
~15 passes into the final third
~5/7 long balls
~7/7 ground duels won
~2/3 tackles won
~6 ball recoveries
~2 interceptions
Arsenal are looking for a top midfielder to complement Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard. According to reports, Neves is one of the midfielders on their radar. Of course, there are other fantastic midfielders, such as Bruno Guimaraes and Martin Zubimendi, but if any Arsenal decision-maker was watching the Portugal vs. Finland friendly, Joao Neves may have earned some transfer points.
The youngster is incredibly press-resistant, has won all of his duels, is very positionally savvy, and has a high football IQ and awareness, all of which Mikel Arteta would want from his No. 6 next season. Neves, just 19, could be a good investment. I’m not sure about you, but I feel if Arsenal is going to spend £100 million plus on a midfielder, it should be on this kid rather than Bruno Guimaraes or Douglas Luiz, who are both priced similarly.
You can watch his performance v Finland on this tweet. Some great distrution balls….
Peter Rix
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Very smart, cause spending $100m on a kid straight out of Benfica worked out great for Chelsea.
We should definitely do the same…
Oh, absolutely!! The only reason our deal with Fabio Vieira from Porto didn`t work out is that we only paid 30 mils fro him. – way too little 🤔
Tchouameni would cost less than this unproven kid
Problem is Tchouameni isn’t moving
£100m based on one performance in a friendly against the mighty Finland…hmmm
one for the future may be, but Arsenal need one for the now
Zudimendi is half the price, twice as experienced, quarter of the risk – our long term number 1 target for a reason
If you watched France against Luxembourg, I guess you would say the same thing about Fofana in the French midfield. He is the one for the now, and would cost a fraction of Neves.
Portuguese clubs are notorious for selling average players to the PL for astronomical fees.
yep, that’s their business model, and i don’t blame them
the hype machine to inflate transfer fees, desperate PL clubs, license to print money