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.
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.