Arsenal Reserves captain Håvard Nordtveit has confirmed in an exclusive interview with Nettavisen.no that despite interest from North London rivals Tottenham, he preferred the move to Arsenal because they were more “serious” and professional.
It has also emerged that Nordtveit’s agent Jim Solbakken rebuffed offers of a trial from both Tottenham and French outfit Bordeaux, before accepting the offer from Manchester United only to be frustrated at the offer of a place in the Under 18s from United.
“Tottenham and Bordeaux was the first one’s that were after me. Tottenham kept in touch with FK Haugesund and spoke to my dad and even gave him his card. But everything was a lot more serious when Arsenal entered. From then on things went really fast.”
Håvard also spoke about being headhunted personally Arsène Wenger, and was of course asked how close/far away we are from seeing him make an appearance in the first team. Both questions were answered with maturity of a person twice his age.
“I knew about it before he came over from my agent, so I think the news was bigger for the city than for me” Håvard says while smiling.
“I was playing that day and the rumors about someone having seen Arsène Wenger in the city emerged at the player’s meeting before the match.”
“I have to take things day by day. I play for the reserve´s team now, as a captain and have had a tremendous developing period till now.”
The 17 year old is currently away with Norway Under 19’s, but after the first two fixtures ended in defeat they will not be going to the Championships.
With thanks to Egil Smith-Meyer for helping with the translations.
Article By – J.Sanderson
Thanks for the info! How did he play in the tournament?
This blog will get the recognition it deserves amongst Arsenal fans soon, It is very original, I just wish you could stir things up with your opinion (if you have seen a player long enough) and a bit more effort in coherence…Will check out this site much more often
I think it’s good to have him in the reserves. He’s getting experience captaining a side, which is invaluable and won’t happen in the first team for quite awhile.
He has played 90 minutes in both games, and acording to the interview has been impressive.
Cescantional, i often do add my opinion, but when i did yesterday people told me to shut up.
So im caught in two minds.
Do you think he will go on to become a first team player for Arsenal?
i would expect he would get 6 months on loan before making the jump to first team
J.Sanderson, do you think Nordtveit will grow up and be much taller, so he can partner Toure and form a strong partnership?
You know the current one is not working, either Gallas and Toure are not tall enough, or with Senderos a little taller but more costly mistakes.
So do we need a new strong center deffence player or we can get him from the reserves in Nodtveit and Djourou.
This is the most important position that concerns me for next season, and if we solved this problem our chances will increase greatly.
I think you should show your opinion more Sanderson you no more about these players than most people on here if not everyone so ur opinion is likely to be the most realistic. I think yesterday people just got the wrong jist of what you were trying to say.
I understand mate, and i will do in future, i tend to do it more in the comment section.
I feel proud that already Nordtveit is slagging Tottenham off haha.
and Nordtveit is 188cm, so he could get over 190.
still big for a centre back
Hey Jsmie,
I think you should focus on continuing to objectively report everything you already do, as it is one of the only sources of information on these players. You can express your opinion on certain articles like a player profile or in the comments section as people sometimes ask your opinion there. This way people can be left to make up their own minds about players and take in your opinion from time to time as well.
Keep up the amazing work – your blog is getting more and more popular by the day!
Hey Jamie,
I think you should focus on continuing to objectively report everything you already do, as it is one of the only sources of information on these players. You can express your opinion on certain articles like a player profile or in the comments section as people sometimes ask your opinion there. This way people can be left to make up their own minds about players and take in your opinion from time to time as well.
Keep up the amazing work – your blog is getting more and more popular by the day!
Nicely done, but to be honest the things you put in the article was allready well known (at least with us norwegian), you could focuse more of him saying how happy he is at the club, how players like Toure (like a father), Clichy (like a brother and a real professional) and Senderos (nice to him, ask him bout his life etc) treat him, and how he mentions that some players is not that excited bout new players coming in…
http://www.nettavisen.no/sport/fotball/england/article1805775.ece
“Hvordan er det å være ute på feltet med så mange stjernespillere?
– Mitt inntrykk er at alle er enormt gode spillere. Gael Clichy er for eksempel en stjernekar. Han snakker til meg som om skulle vært hans egen bror. I mine øyne er han nå Premier Leagues beste venstreback.
– Mange spillere ser dumt på oss nye, men noen kommer bort og tar oss i hånden og spør hvordan det går med familien. Slik er også Kolo Toure og Phillippe Senderos, forteller han. ”
You forgot to translate this part.
“How is it to be on the taining ground with all this star players?
– Everybody on the field are extremely good players. Gael Clichy is a really nice guy, threat my like his own brother. In my opninion, he’s the best left back in the premiership.
– Many players look stupidly at us (the new players), but other players shake hands with us and asks how its going with the family and so on. Kolo Toure and Senderos are like that.”
and this:
” Ble du nervøs foran de første treningene?
– Den første dagen var jeg det. Men da var det heldigvis preseason og oppkjøring for alle reservene og førstelagsspillerne sammen. Så da ble det en roligere start, ikke rett på. Men det er et daglig press det å prestere. Dersom du slår en dårlig pasning får du høre det så ørene fyker, uansett hvem man er.”
-Were you nervous before the first trainings?
-Yes, before the first one I was. But it was preseason and the reserveteam-players and firstteam-players were all togather. So the start was more easy then. But its a dailly pressure to perform here every day. If you hit a bad pass, you will really hear it from the others, now mather who you are.
I dont think we should be talking about Nordtveit becoming Toure’s future partner – not because of him, this young lad is exceptional – but because I genuinely think that Toure is not good enough to be considered as our long term CB having had two mediocre seasons. 5 years from now we should be talking about Arsenal’s defence being Nordtveit and another CB who can actually header the ball. Toure cannot.
Great blog mate, I’ve been looking for heaps of info on the reserves, and your site is pretty damn good at it – broad range of articles, and you keep track of the loanees, which i always found hard to do when they played in the foreign leagues…
Well Done!
Nordtveit did a-okey in the tournament, tho the norwegian team didn’t impress Havard was good and showed his exellent vision of the game several times.
Great blog! My new favorite. Arsenalfan from Norway! :)
In my opinion, Nordtveit is more like a playing defender. He is not the tall, tackling defender we all miss in our team. You should also remember that Nordtveit came from a Norwegian championship club (not playing in our highest division). He didn´t even play regularly there.
He was outstanding, playing for our U19 last week. But he is better going forward, than defending. So he needs to improve his defencive play, and also become more physical.
Having said that – I`m really looking forward to see him play the CC next year. We´ll have to take it from there..
I’m glad to see all those Norwegian Arsenal fans in here. I was surprised that I could read the Norwegian text with my Danish knowledge.
btw. Are there any other Icelanders that read this blog?
Hi! thanks alot mr.Sanderson from a great blog. I´m a finnish gunner fan and this blog is almost the only way to find out about those promising youngsters. I can´t wait to see Vela in the red and white next season.. I´ve been looking some osasunas matches and I firmly believe he will make an impact! so thanks once more and keep on writing this great stuff so we gooners up here can also keep up with the team..
not iclaland but sure as hell sweden;)