Arsenal’s £34m signing Mikel Arteta was accused of not trusting – and where he is now
Arsenal paid £34m for a player whose time with the club appears to be coming to an end after falling out of favor with Mikel Arteta
Before Mikel Arteta’s obvious shift towards signing physically robust players who excel in duels, the Arsenal manager followed the precedent set by Arsène Wenger in the transfer market. The summer of 2022 is widely seen as the transfer window where Arsenal raised their game to become the Premier League title contender we see today.
Two players have been credited with the Gunners’ transformation: former Manchester City stars Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko. Yet another signing in the form of Fabio Vieira, arriving in a £34 million deal from Porto in June 2022, also fits the archetype of lightweight technical players long associated with Arsenal.
Already at that time, Portuguese playmaker Vieira stood out among his teammates and other Premier League stars with his particularly slender figure.
An initial settling-in period was expected given the fast pace of the league compared to Portugal’s Primeira Liga, where he had scored six goals and provided 14 assists before his move. After signing a five-year contract at the Emirates, an injury sidelined Vieira for the first few matches of the season before watching subsequent games from the bench.
He made his league debut in the defeat at Manchester United, but made his full debut against Brentford in September, where he also scored his first goal for the Gunners. The majority of his appearances for the remainder of the season were as a substitute, while Jesus and Zinchenko were considered indispensable.
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By January 2023, it was evident that Arteta did not view Vieira as a regular starter, leading pundit Gary Neville to claim that the Spaniard lacked confidence in his summer signing after remaining on the bench during a 0-0 home draw against Newcastle – a match which could have suited Vieira’s talent for breaking down defenses with his clever passing and vision.
Neville addressed the situation during commentary for Sky Sports, saying: “Arteta, he’s looking at Vieira at £34m on his bench and not bringing him in, so he doesn’t have confidence that he’s going to improve the team that was there.
“Fabio Vieira cost £34 million. Mikel obviously thought he would have weakened the team by bringing him in. They rely on the perfect pass and the feed, they don’t have full-backs who deliver really good crosses, they don’t have a midfielder who changes play or plays crosses the way De Bruyne does.”
Vieira finished his first campaign in north London with two assists and a goal in 501 minutes of league football, with a further four assists in cup competitions, where he played 670 minutes.
At the start of the 2023/24 season, it seemed that Arteta no longer saw the Portuguese as a midfielder, instead deploying him on the right wing as a back-up option. He received even less playing time during his sophomore campaign.
Arteta was visibly annoyed when Vieira was shown a red card for a rash tackle against Burnley after being brought on as a substitute in November 2023. After his three-match suspension, a groin injury sidelined him for several months, after which he played just 54 minutes of football that season.
It was clear by then, in 2024, that Vieira did not meet the physical demands of an Arteta side, made clearer by the manager’s reliance on players such as Declan Rice and Kai Havertz in midfield. This summer, Vieira was eager to leave in search of more playing time and a loan deal was agreed with his former club Porto until the end of the 2024/25 season.
It took some time for the creative midfielder to return to form at his former club, but he finished the season in positive fashion, scoring 11 goals in 42 appearances.
Last summer, when Vieira was widely seen as having no future at Arsenal, he was reportedly put up for sale upon his return from loan. However, it is believed no club was prepared to pay a sum deemed acceptable for a player with two years left on his contract.
In the end, Arsenal reached a deal with newly promoted Bundesliga side Hamburger SV, loaning Vieira again until the end of the current season. Vieira was sent off against Union Berlin in their third Bundesliga match.
He was sent off again in his second match of suspension against FC Cologne, this time for receiving two yellow cards. Since then, he has bounced back with two assists and a goal in his last four outings.
Vieira is expected to leave Arsenal in the summer of 2026. If suitable clubs make Arsenal an offer, his career in English football will end on a disappointing note, having run out of steam before he could truly make a significant impact beyond the odd moment of creative flair.
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