Interview

‘Nuno's the right profile for what we’re building'

Nuno Tavares made quite an impression on his first appearance in Arsenal colours.

The Portuguese left back equalised in our friendly draw with Rangers on Sunday, and Mikel Arteta has been impressed with what he has seen so far.

“We wanted to have more strength and specific qualities in the left-back position, and we identified Nuno a while ago,” Arteta told Arsenal Media. 

“To be fair to the scouting department, they have done brilliantly to identify a talent with the qualities that we required, at the age we required and financially it was something we can afford. 

“The boy has already been pretty impressive. I think he is the right profile for what we are trying to build here.”

So should we expect to see more additions with the same profiles as Tavares and Albert Sambi Lokonga?

“It is one of the profiles, but we need a good mixture as well,” Arteta said. “We need some senior players, players with different types of leadership in the team, with different qualities, people that complement each other.

“At the end of the day it is about the cohesion of the team so we need a squad that is cohesive that can develop and adapt, that offers different qualities to change games, protect games when we need to and this is what we are trying to build.”