Arsenal have signed the intriguing 22-year-old Fabio Vieira from Porto for a £34 million fee, completing another summer acquisition deal.
The 22-year-old Portuguese is the Gunners’ third summer signing, after Brazilian attacker Marquinhos and goalkeeper Matt Turner.
There will be a £30 million initial payment and upcoming add-ons totaling £4 million.
The 22-year-old is a promising young player, and Mikel Arteta has added him to his team along with Brazilian forward Marquinhos.
The midfielder, who made 27 appearances in the Portuguese top division last year, contributed to Arsenal’s creative side with an amazing 14 assists and six goals.
Although Arsenal has not yet made the acquisition official, it is known that Vieira underwent a physical on Thursday in north London.
Vieira, who has played 21 times for Portugal’s Under-21 team, first joined Porto’s academy as a youngster in 2008 and made his senior debut in the 2020–21 season.
After working with Porto B in the second tier, he made 23 appearances across all competitions and scored three goals.
But he didn’t properly introduce himself to the European scene until this season.
Many people in England may wonder why Arsenal are spending that much money on a player who wasn’t constantly in the Porto starting lineup, but the facts speak for themselves.
He helped his childhood team achieve the league-cup double by making 39 appearances throughout all competitions.
In the Champions League group stage, Porto faced Liverpool twice, and he was on the substitutes’ bench for the 5-1 loss to the Reds back in September.
His goals all came in significant games, if you look at them. Vieira scored goals against Benfica, Porto’s other major opponent, and Sporting, the previous season’s winners.
He also put up fantastic performances while he was on the field, particularly in the Champions League.
He is highly regarded, so this could be considered Mikel Arteta’s most exciting transfer so far.
Porto released a statement saying that it had struck an agreement with Arsenal FC for the permanent transfer of Fabio Vieira for the sum of 40 million euros.
With Gabriel Jesus of Manchester City and Youri Tielemans of Leicester both targets for Arsenal, Mikel Arteta is set to keep up the pressure to bring in more players this summer.
On Thursday night, Gunners hero Jack Wilshere talked about Vieira, admitting he hadn’t seen much of him but praising his “amazing” output.
According to Metro, the 30-year-old stated of Vieira on talkSPORT, “I’ll be honest, I haven’t heard too much about him.
When I saw it, I uploaded it to YouTube. He presents well. On YouTube, everyone appears attractive.
14 assists and six goals came from midfield. That’s amazing. We were all aware that Arsenal needed to add players because they play in Europe.
They need to enlarge their squad, so it’s good to see that they are taking action. They will be aware of him having observed, scouted, and examined his stats. Time will tell, but it might be a good deal.”
