Nigel Winterburn admits he wasn’t expecting Fabio Vieira to be so dominant.
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The 22-year-old, who joined Arsenal in a £34m deal from Porto in his home country this summer, has had to wait for minutes this season.
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He was an unused substitute in Arsenal’s wins over Bournemouth, Fulham, and Aston Villa but made his debut in Arsenal’s Europa League victory over FC Zurich.
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Mikel Arteta gave him his full Premier League debut on Sunday as Arsenal defeated Brentford 3-0 to reclaim top spot in the table, with Vieira scoring a stunning long-range effort off the post on 49 minutes.
Winterburn told FreeSuperTips:
He was impressive. We saw in the Europa League that he looked a little bit off the pace and that’s just because he hasn’t had a lot of game time.
‘He had that injury and of course he’s a new player so there’s a new system and way of playing to learn.‘I fully understand that and why he wasn’t quite up to speed in his first start the other week.
‘But I thought his performance against Brentford was impressive and I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting it from what I saw previously.‘It looked like he might need a little bit of time to settle in, but it was a good performance.
He looks confident on the ball; he can pick out a pass and of course it was a wonderful finish at Brentford.‘We’re looking for that on a regular basis now and that will be what he’ll be hoping for.