Charles Watts believes Arsenal’s warm-weather training camp is the big opportunity Fabio Vieira has been waiting for.
Vieira signed for the Gunners in the summer for £34m from Porto but is yet to hold down a place in the starting 11 under Mikel Arteta.
The 22-year-old caught the eye of the Spanish manager as he registered 16 assists and seven goals last season, helping Porto win the Portuguese league title and finish 17 points ahead of Benfica.
But following a foot injury picked up in the summer, Vieira missed out on valuable opportunities to impress during pre-season and was lacking match sharpness come the turn of the Premier League, as he failed to make an appearance until the sixth game of the league campaign.
With the World Cup presenting Arsenal with the opportunity to head to Dubai for warm-weather training and Vieira not selected in the Portugal World Cup squad, Watts claimed on his YouTube channel that he believes this is his big moment to make a real impression ahead of the rest of the season.
“It’s a big opportunity for him given he missed out on all pre-season because he was injured, this is a good opportunity for him to get away, play, train in this training camp environment and really kick on ahead of the second half of the season,” Watts said.
TIF Thoughts on Watts’ comments…
Since his return from injury, Vieira has featured in only 241 minutes of Premier League action, starting only once in a 3-0 win at Brentford where he scored his first Gunners goal.
But it wasn’t enough to keep him as a regular in the league side, and has seen the majority of his minutes come in the Europa League where he’s started every game.
Although Europe is seeing him pick up regular minutes alongside his league cameos, playing against sides from Switzerland, Netherlands and Norway perhaps isn’t what he needs or expected with him not up with the speed or physicality of the English game.
However, the opportunity in Dubai to be closely watched by Arteta is the perfect opportunity for him to finally break through into the fold.