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Paul Merson has sympathized with Arsenal defender Nuno Tavares after the Gunners' 3-0 hammering at the hands of Crystal Palace earlier this week.
Palace hosted Arsenal on Monday (April 4), with the Eagles running riot against the Gunners to win the contest comprehensively. Tavares, who had a poor first half, was subbed after 45 minutes.
The young Portuguese defender started the match after first-choice left-back Kieran Tierney was ruled out for the rest of the season due to another injury.
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The Portugal U-21 player has been rotated constantly, making only 20 appearances so far. Tavares found himself struggling against Palace's intensity on Monday.
Merson lamented the absence of Tierney, telling Sky Sports:
“Kieran Tierney is going to be a big miss for Arsenal, after his knee injury before the Palace game. He’s one of the players you can’t afford to take out of this Arsenal team. He’s solid, he’s an 8/10 every week, he sets an example. He’s a winner – you know what you’re going to get with him, and he was a big miss on Monday night.”
The former Arsenal striker also sympathized with Tavares, who he feels was not ready for the intense game.
“Nuno Tavares had one of them games at left-back, but it’s hard when you’re out of the team for so long. You’re not really playing football – you’re just training. Even playing in the U23s, it’s not the Premier League. To come in and say: ‘Right, play in this game’ – you feel for these players. No matter how much you train, it’s not the same as playing.”
Martin Odegaard laments poor performance from Arsenal
Gunners playmaker Martin Odegaard was unhappy with his side's performance against Crystal Palace.
“It was a terrible game from us from start to finish. Maybe a bit better in the last 10 minutes, but in general I think it was a really bad performance,” Odegaard conceded.
He admitted that they could have done better but wants to look forward to the next set of games now.
“We should have done much better, but there is no time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to get back to work and think about the next game already. This is tough but we have to look forward. We have to learn from it obviously. We have to look at the game, what we did wrong, and make sure it won’t happen again.”
Odegaard missed a big chance in the second half with Palace leading by two goals after a subdued first-half display. His match took a turn for the worse as he conceded a late penalty that was converted by Wilfried Zaha to make it 3-0 to the Eagles.
