AINSLEY MAITLAND-NILES had words of encouragement for Nuno Tavares after the full-back’s gaffe against Liverpool yesterday.
Tavares, 21, gifted Liverpool their second goal when his poor pass sent Diogo Jota through on goal.
The Portuguese has been in good form of late, deputising for the injured Kieran Tierney.
Such were the level of his performances that even with Tierney fit again, boss Mikel Arteta opted to stick with Tavares.
But he may wish he hadn’t.
Maitland-Niles, however, was keen to ensure that his young team-mate’s head didn’t drop after his error.
According to Football London, the midfielder told him: “Keep going Nuno.”
It didn’t seem to do much good, however, as Tavares was caught out of position for Mo Salah’s subsequent third in the 4-0 win.
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Tavares had fired a title warning at Liverpool before the game.
He told talkSPORT this week: “This game is big for us. We go to Anfield to try to win the game. That’s it.
“Why top three and not top one? I told you we are Arsenal, so we want to win the league. For us it is top one.
“In the beginning we didn’t do well, at the beginning of the season. But now we are good and people need to understand we are Arsenal. We need to win games to achieve our objective.
“I don’t know why people are so shocked about Arsenal. We are a big club and have good players.
“I don’t know why people are surprised about that. For us it is normal and simple to win games.
“We are in top five, for us we want to achieve top one. I don’t know why people are surprised with that.”
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