Who is Nuno Tavares? The highly-rated 21-year-old Benfica Left-back Newcastle are Keeping tabs on!

Going by the reports of various outlets (via Teamtalk) Newcastle United along with Burnley are Keeping tabs on highly-rated 21-year-old Benfica talent Nuno Tavares.

Newcastle United are extensively scouting the emerging Portuguese U-21 International for some time now and the talented player shined in this years’ Europa League fixtures.

Tavares enjoyed his debut season in the 2019/20 Liga Nos campaign when he boomed onto the scene to make 10 first-team appearances for Benfica after getting promoted from the eagles' academy itself.

He is an attack-minded progressive full-back with immense dribbling ability and trickery. His agility, physicality, and hard tackling are some other key areas on which he relishes upon.

He is known for his pace and also is the quickest player in the Liga Nos. He has an eye for a pass in central positions and at 6ft he is expected to be a monster in terms of his aerial ability after his development gets completed.

While his rapid recovery speed helps him in defensive track backing, it is also a weapon he often uses in the final third on the opposite end.

It’s his attacking output in his breakthrough season that has caught many eyeballs, He scored 1 goal and supplied with 4 assists in the 10 appearances he made that campaign. He completed 0.9 dribbles, creating 1.3 key passes and averaging 1 shot per game. He lobbed in with 2.5 long balls and pinged 1.9 crosses on an average per game in the last game. His defensive output too was exceptional averaging 3.2 tackles & Interception per game which is an immense improvement on Newcastle’s Jamal Lewis 2.1 per game.

Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

His notable performance in the defeat to Arsenal in the Europa League was excellent and imposing.

Of late he has been poor though as he can’t replicate or build on his debut campaign output and he got limited first-team appearances due to the same reason. He has 0 goal contributions this campaign and his underlying stats have also regressed.

Benfica has protected their asset with a €88m exit clause but because he rarely was in Starting XI regularly means that any potential suitors can get him in the region €20-30 million.

The Newcastle Verdict

He may be better than Lewis due to his better defensive awareness and he rarely gets beaten in a 1v1 situation thanks to his pace.

Tavares gets forward well and can cross accurately from the left flank, which also means he’d suit an attacking wing-back role and the Toon needs cover for Ritchie and Murphy in that role to use their counter-attacking proactive 3-5-2 system.

Photo by Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images

It's highly unlikely the Toon hierarchy would take a gamble on Tavarez as he's too expensive and they already signed a full-back just last summer in Jamal Lewis for big money.

There are other areas of the pitch Magpies need to strengthen upon such as the aging Centre-backs and Central Midfielders. They're also looking to bring Joe Willock in permanently.

And even if they do want to get on board a proven explosive Left-back the fan-favorite Jetro Willems is available in the market for free. Newcastle can do without Tavarez and should sensibly dodge this expensive transfer bullet.

Let us know in the comments below, Should Newcastle sign Nuno Tavarez?