Arsenal are open to selling Nuno Tavares this summer, football.london understands, having seen a move in January fail to materialise. The Portuguese youth international remains on loan with Nottingham Forest after a deal with Marseille to leave permanently fell apart with the Premier League club needing Tavares to cover for injuries and absences from the African Cup of Nations.
Arsenal did not insert a recall clause into Tavares’ loan move to Forest in the summer, preventing them from calling him back without an agreement. OM instead moved for Quentin Merlin of Nantes for a fee in the region of €10million (£8.6million).
However, according to Italian media, Tavares has drawn interest from Serie A side Lazio. The new Biancocelesti Igor Tudor worked with Tavares last season when he was Marseille head coach, whilst the Arsenal man was on loan.
Former Arsenal midfielder and now Lazio star Matteo Guendouzi has already welcomed Tudor, who he played under at OM with Tavares. He said: “Tudor’s idea of football can hurt other Serie A teams.
“He did great things at OM, even if it was complicated for everyone towards the end of last season and we were unable to take second place. He had already done well in Serie A with Hellas Verona.”
Arsenal will hope that the appointment of Tudor does indeed see an invigorated desire to bring Tavares to the Stadio Olimpico. Meanwhile, a thigh injury has meant Tavares missed the last four league games for Forest and he could yet miss plenty more.
Speaking in February, Nuno Espirito Santo provided a worrying explanation: “Tavares is injured. He got injured in the West Ham game and is going to be out for a while.”
Whether that ends his season remains to be seen, but there is yet to be an update on when he might indeed return. Arsenal will hope that he does come back and continues his form which was impressing his Portuguese coach at Forest.
The better he plays the more chance of improving the number and the quality of the offers on the table. With Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jakub Kiwior, Jurrien Timber and Takehiro Tomiyasu, the left-back slot in north London is near-impossible for Tavares to break into and therefore the impending exit is not surprising but could yet be beneficial financially for the Gunners.
Forest have a £12million buy option in their loan move however that is unlikely to be activated considering the financial concerns they have. If Arsenal can get close to this figure from Lazio or another interested party it would be both a profit and of significant financial help to their cause.
