Yeah I don’t know that he’s had enough rope to draw that conclusion. You can certainly write him off.
Obviously none of us know what discussions went on over the summer but I made the assumption that they bought him the same way the took a gamble on Martinelli, Sambi and Nuno. All of those guys came in at different prices but I don’t think any of them were expected to be instant impact players.
35m is just not a lot of money in the market for potential when ManU paid 80m for Anthony in the same window. I took it as a relatively simple deal that Edu and Arteta were both happy to do.
Has he looked good enough to start for this team? Absolutely not. But I’m still not sure why there’s so much anger at him. If we’d wrapped up a deal for Neto or whoever in August instead of getting distracted by Douglas Luiz, Vieira wouldn’t even be making the bench.
We paid more for him than Zinchenko. I don’t get the excuse that we shouldn’t expect much for him. There is absolutely a discussion to be had on whether the money could have been better spent.
I haven’t given up on him yet but I get why others have.
We paid a release clause iirc. For whatever reason the club didn’t want to negotiate. I’m not saying it was a good idea but I think that’s probably why he cost more than Zinchenko.
I just wish we bought someone better like James Maddison.
Personally, I think Vieira’s best position in this team might turn out to be LW. I see him as a forward rather than a midfielder. He doesn’t have the size nor athleticism to play in the middle.
I remain in rhe “give him time” camp, which was my position when we signed him, but I am a little disappointed so far. I didn’t expect the finished article but I’d certainly hoped for him to be a bit more caoable of producing than he has been so far.
This is like Sambi again. Buying potential and elevating up the squad when our numbers are to low then.
It’s catching us out and needs reevaluating when we are looking at potential players then.
I’ve seen people put this on Edu btw. Pretty positive all reports suggested Arteta was the one who pushed for Vieira and I think that was implied in the interviews from Arteta as well.
Lokonga and Vieira have both been Arteta moves. Like to boast about his track record myself and it’s still great but it’s not flawless.
We get the squad strong enough first and then add potential
We also look hard at the information that got us here with this deal because it looks shocking right now and costly and not from a financial point.
Sometimes it just doesn’t work out - i think it is easy to look at entire body of business and just chalk it all up to “good moves” and “bad moves” - sometimes “good moves” don’t work out and very rarely “bad moves” turn into strokes of genius.
Vieira always seemed like just a depth and development piece, which was ok… the problem now is we are actually in with a shout at title and it is fucking scary that we have literally nothing behind Partey, Xhaka, and Ode for those middle spots.
This just seems like an odd way to temper what we should expect from him. Well to begin with I really don’t care about expectations or potential or whatever. As a basis anyone we sign for the first team needs to be able to contribute in some capacity. He can’t. That’s the problem. Same issue as Lokonga. He could cost 3.5million, he sucks right now.
I think you may be overestimating the level of contribution he was supposed to make.
And as for the money angle, it doesn’t temper my expectations, it’s just kind of where the market is at if you’re an English club trying to buy potential. Arsenal could have easily tried to negotiate with Porto to get him for less, maybe they should have, but Arsenal decided to pay the release clause. It happens all the time but for some reason only Arsenal fans clutch pearls over it.
I thought he’d eat EL minutes and that’s it because I’m an idiot an assume ESR would be healthy and that there was no way we’d end the summer window without either Neto or Raphinha.