The 11 players who could leave Arsenal in Mikel Arteta’s summer rebuild

9. Nuno Tavares

Nuno Tavares is another player who was signed with big expectation but unfortunately has flopped.

He was sent out on loan to Marseille and, in fairness, has had a pretty good loan spell. At the start of this season, if you would have told any Arsenal fan that Tavares would go out on loan to Ligue1 and return with 6 goals, they’d have walked away in disbelief. But that’s the return he’s bagged.

Although, I don’t think this overachievement will be enough to sway Arteta. I speak a lot about his long-term plan because that’s exactly what he’s implementing. Moving from fifth last season to second or potentially even first this season, he’ll want to fight for the title again next season. Unfortunately, Tavares isn’t the type of player you want in a title-contending team.

Tavares faces the same fate as Cedric Soares, since he returns from loan with only a season left on his current contract. It’ll be considered, but the board won’t want to extend either player’s contract and instead will sell for a reduced fee.