Nigel Winterburn has told Mikel Arteta that Nuno Tavares is ‘not a viable option’ for Arsenal at the moment due to his recent performance levels.
The summer signing was taken off at half-time in the defeat to after an error-strewn performance.
A similar situation occurred for the full-back against Nottingham Forest in the , when he was substituted after just 35 minutes.
For the loss to Brighton at the weekend, Arteta made the decision to take Granit Xhaka out of midfield and play him at left-back, rather than deploy Tavares again.
Legendary former Arsenal left-back Winterburn feels the 22-year-old must improve defensively, and do so ‘very quickly’.
‘I just don’t think he fully understands the complete role of a fullback and I think there’s a lot more he needs to learn defensively in terms of the situations he puts himself in,’ Winterburn told the of Tavares.
‘He needs to learn that side of the game very quickly and get back to the form going forward that he showed earlier in the season. The problem is when you’ve had a couple of games like the ones he’s had, then your confidence just drops so quickly.
‘You can also lose the trust of the supporters, so it makes it difficult to come back when that happens.’
‘It’s hard to say what’s happened when you’re looking from the outside, but it seems his level of performance has dropped,’ Winterburn added.
‘I’m not sure if that’s down to the amount he’s played or if it’s a confidence issue.
‘For me, I don’t see him at this minute in time as a viable option for Arsenal due to his performances. He played well in certain games at the start of the season when [Kieran] Tierney was out injured.’
With the Gunners losing their last two games and now trailing north rivals Tottenham by three points, the pressure will be on when they travel to St Mary’s to take on Southampton on Saturday.
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