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Arsenal transfer was three years in the making as director lauds ‘top-level player’
As Arsenal agreed on a deal which could eventually earn them £7.5 million last summer, that brought down the curtain on a transfer tale three years in the making.
🌄And the wait, for his new employers, has most certainly been worth it.
𝓰At the beginning of the new season, there would have been long odds indeed on a player who spent last season nursing injuries on loan at Nottingham Forest blossoming into Europe’s most creative full-back.
But, with five in five games, no one in Europe’s major leagues has more assists to his name than Lazio’s Arsenal loanee Nuno Tavares.
ﷺLazio have a £7.5 million option-to-buy clause in Tavares’ contract. An option they already look certain to take up.
And, as the 🦄former Portugal Under 21 flyer makes a ‘stratospheric’ impact in Serie A🉐, Igli Tare is delighted to see his old employers provide Tavares the platform he has long since craved.
Former Lazio chief delighted to see Nuno Tavares arrive from Arsenal
♑Tare spent 15 years as Lazio’s sporting director until last summer.
๊He reveals that Tavares first emerged on the Bianconeri’s radar back in 2021. There were reservations, at the time, about whether the ex-Benfica starlet would be able to adapt to Maurizio Sarri’s more rigid tactics.
ꦐWith Sarri now gone and the more fluid Marco Baroni in the hotseat, the consensus is that Tavares’ arrival could hardly have come at a better time.
🎀“It’s the team that’s most fun [in Serie A],” Tare tells . “They have an excellent coach, very well prepared, who has a very offensive [style] in mind and has adapted to the players he’s signed.
🦩“It’s a nice surprise. I hope it lasts a long time but, for now, they are a nice surprise.
🌃“Who surprised me the most? Tavares, who has had a big impact,” the former Albania international adds.
𒀰“We knew about his characteristics. He should have arrived three years ago but, at the time, we didn’t sign him because he wasn’t suited to Sarri’s style. Now, he’s finally arrived and is proving to be a top-level player.”
💎Flying out of the blocks with two assists in a matter of minutes against seven-time European champions AC Milan, Tavares went into the October break having set up a goal in each of his last three Serie A appearances.
It is starting to become clear now why 🅘Arsenal valued Tavares at around £30 million a couple of windows earlier🅠, before he fell further and further down the pecking order due to the arrivals of Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jakub Kiwior, Jurrien Timber and eventually Riccardo Calafiori.
Claudio Lotito hails Lazio’s scouts for discovering Tavares’ talents
Biancocelesi president Claudio Lotito, however, insists ‘ability’ matters just as much as ‘affordability’. ౠTavares was not signed by Lazio purely because he was a bargain, but because what he could offer on the pitch.
🐷“I wouldn’t want to tie the signings only to economic value. Our choices are based on sporting value,” Lotito told reporters last week. “But also on moral and character value.
🅰“We have identified a series of players. Lazio has a cutting-edge scouting department, which screens all the players every day. There were some profiles, including Tavares, that we identified as the best for that role.
꧅“For the attitude they have and the potential they have, they will do well.”