Levante have opened talks with Arsenal over Brazilian duo Wellington Silva and Pedro Botelho, as Arsène Wenger begins to shape his first-team squad for next season.
The La Liga outfit are rebuilding their squad under new manager Juan Ignacio Martínez, who coached Botelho at Cartagena last season. Martínez has made the pacy winger one of his top targets, and initial discussions have proved fruitful, with Wenger already telling Botelho he will not be part of his first-team squad next year.
Levante are also keen to secure a second loan spell for Wellington, who spent the final six months of last season with the Valencia outfit, but only made two substitute appearances. Martínez is a big fan of the young forward, and confirmed he tried to sign him in January, only for Silva to rejected the offer of regular first-team action for the attractions of La Liga.
Botelho has two years left on his contract, and the initial signs are that Arsenal won’t renew it, without a spell in the Spanish top flight. The club had to pay 90% of his wages last season, as Cartagena remained skeptical of his attitude. However, his cult status there is now secure, after a stunning campaign.
The step up to La Liga promises to be a good one for Botelho, and with Wellington set to work under a coach who has close contacts with Arsenal, the pair would significantly benefit from securing deals with Levante.
Won’t he have a chance in pre season? What happens if he goes back performs well and with a year left that’s a massive risk.!
as long as both get plenty of playing time I dont mind sending the both out on loan
Interesting to see how these two fare should they return to Arsenal. Have any of our Spanish loanees come good?
Seem to have potential though, I’m just hoping this investment pays off. Vela has been disappointing – hopefully he’ll come good, albeit he hasn’t had many opportunities (coming off the bench etc…). What is his best position?
So is this a season in the shop window for Botelho or can he expect him to become a part of the 1st team in the future?
Shame I thought Pedro would get a chance this pre-season? He has a work permit doesn’t he??
2 questions.
1. Didn’t Wellington only play 2 games in his 6 months spell and Levante also stopped him from going to a tournament?
2. If Botelho does not join us this summer, would that be 5 seasons out on loan, if he joins Levante on loan next season. surely he’ll ask to leave.
I was looking forward to seeing Botelho at Arsenal
What are the chances that Wellington will receive exposure hours?
Surely Botelho qualifies for a Euro passport by now.
if so, why dont we loan him to a PL club instead. See how he plays in a physically tougher league and in a harsher winter
If Botelho does not come to Arsenal, it seems like a waste of time both for the player and for us. Really thought he would get a chance on the left wing this year.
I’m so confused with Botelho I thought the AFC was going to give a chance this pre-season? Also will W.Silva be in pre season tour?
Y is bothelo not part of the First team plans next season? we need more wingers and surely gibbs needs competition for left back coz clichy is rubbish.
If you think Botelho is better than Clichy then you are out of your mind mate.
I think the fact that people question these signing and the process of this loaning system shows how shallow minded some people are. Yes, not all of these young players will be massive successes in the same way not all of the youngsters in our youth system will be massive successes. I can tell you that even at the current fee that Vela would bring in alone shows the worth of this and I still believe he will become a top class player. Our old set up with Beveren brought us Kolo toure and Eboue plus could have brought us a few more. We also have missed out on Ronaldinho do to the work permit issues so while this set up is not ideal, it is better then not signing any of these young talents at all.
So you people would rather lose out on the next Ronaldinho then have this loan system that is not that costly. You people also don’t think just as many (technically more) fail in our youth system then out on these loans? Yah, that makes a ton of sense.
No problems in the loan system (although 18 was a bit much!!!!)
But once a player qualifies to play within the English leagues, I think they should be honing their skills to play in the PL not La Liga
I disagree. You don’t want to send a guy on loan to teams that don’t play similar style football to us. If no english club the plays attacking football wants the player on loan then I would much rather him have a year at a foreign club then be stuck in a long ball club.
@Shane
Swansea City says hi. Play similiar football, it’s in England and I really wanted to see him get an opportunity.
Oh well, hopefully he’ll do a great job at Levante.
By the way, for everyone that has not even ever seen Botelho yet you guys keep hyping him up. Maybe it is the simple fact that he is not that great. Seriously, I can’t understand this hype job at all. It reminds me of when everyone hyped up Luke Ayling.
From what i see Botelho is a good player BUT i really want Wenger to sstart loaning players to say a….championship side or dutch/spanish/german TOP flight!! So they gain experience and play better players. Also i really wish the clubs which accept loanees actually play the loanees!!
You can’t just force a player on a club. The club has to actually want the player too.
ive seen botelho in 4 full matches and he reminds me a bit of evra but needs improvement on defence but his attacking treat is quality so i hope arsenal keep him as a left winger and jenkinson can be back up to gibbs for the time being.wellington well he still needs a loan so i think its a good ideal coz the last levante coach didnt like him.it appears the new coach does so just hope i he gets regular minutes.
From what I’ve been reading, I would say Wellington needs a brain more than a loan :)
I really will like to c him as a back-up player to any left back we replace clichy wit…i think gibbs is outrageously overhyped because he’s english.as far as i’m concerned,he’s a rubbish player..worst than clichy….i’ll be happy if we sell him off
Botelho is a poor mans Traore based on the handful of games I have seen. However Arsenal should continue to use this route for getting work permits. We will catch a big fish one day.
Why can’t we get permits for our players. I don’t see other clubs having this problem ?
UK immigration laws stricter than, for example, Spain and Netherlands.
utd managed to get two work permits for their unproven da silva twins. we managed to get one for denilson.
wrong players get it, it seems
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OK, it looks like Clichy will be leaving, so this news seems to confirm that we are either going to bring in an experienced left back or alternatively buy two CB’s (e.g. Samba, Cahill) and move Verminator to LB. There was a possibility that the LB position could be covered by a combination of Gibbs and Botelho, but the boss has rightly shied away from this, particularly as Botelho is currently more of a winger than a LB and could also do with building some top flight experience.
Re. Botelho – he made a good step forwards last season, putting most of his attitude issues in the past. I strongly believe he has the potential to be a success at Arsenal. The point made above by John about Botelho’s contract renewal is very sobering though.
Do you know the most tragic aspect of Botelho’s signing? We were supposed to sign Angel di Maria at the same time and decided to only go for Botelho in the end. That is just poor judgement beyond belief. :(
feels like if botelho does do well, he’ll shun arsenal for a new deal, just like flamini once did.
reckon he won’t fancy not even being given a chance this summer to make it in arsenal. chances are, he’ll be upset about it and not want to come back to arsenal. Living in a country for 5 years kind of makes it your home so it might be hard for him to leave if he does well. Why not just stay there?
I was hoping to see botelho in the pre-season and i was looking forward to see how he will take his chance also i thinking he is now able to play in england which staying around the first team or going on loan to the championship will perharps do him more good but wenger know best because for me botelho has the quality of an arsenal player so now the main problem which i am seeing is if he go to levante and play well on loan when he will ready to play for arsenal his contract will remain one year left which will be the strumbling block because his future will now be if he sign a new contract, he will have a future with arsenal and if he refuse to sign he will be sold but i hope when the time comes he will stay.
what was the point of getting Pedro and then never giving him a chance!
dude whats the fuss about?
lavante only made an enquiry and its now up to arsenal fc to consider. in my opinion, they shouldnt have any as the way they treated wellington.whatever arsene has in mind will be revealed during or after pre-seasons. if botelho qualify for uk permit he wont be in spain he will come here straight away and it will be up to arsene to decide if he’s ready for first team or not. yes he had a good season but i dont believe he will be trusted with the left position in his first season in england. definately a good squad player while he’s developing. it still too early to find out if he has a future at arsenal or not.
in my opinion lavante shouldnt be given anymore of our young players.
Look on the positive side, If he comes he takes up a place in our 25 man squad. So that should mean Wenger is looking to add more experience, this year. If he proves his worth in the top flight he could always return in January if needed or we bring him back for his last year and possibly he earns himself a deal. Lets be fair he has had some dodgy loan spells, what with his off field attitude, but Martinez seems to have tamed him. Hopefully he can get both these guys working in tandem down the flanks and at the same time improve their attitudes.
Perhaps we can get Galindo to go to Levante as well? Would be good to get a few Arsenal players at the same club. Would improve unity, make the scouts jobs a bit easier and JS’s!!
Am luking forward to see both of them in arsenal shirt in the near future but for now none of them will get any chance b’coz we’r dealing with the best now…!!
you shouldnt pay attention to what people say about attitude of our players.
lavante are really immature and have shown they are irresponsible. top managers are responsible enough to try to tame a young kid with attitude and they will keep it quiet and avoid discussing it. arsene will never do that and i also haven’t seen mancini slagging off bozzotelli in public.
football is a collective game you cannot expect everyone to have great attitude and as a club you have to deal with every situation.
a young kid with cash sulking everytime things dont go his way is not strange. and they will mature up one day and behave.
if this is true, what is wenger thinking???
not bringing botelho back…has wenger gone mad?
how much longer do we have put up arshavin as a makeshift left winger?
botelho is a complete natural left winger with something we definitely need.
i will be gutted to see him farmed out again, or to see him leave us. he will be a player.
I am 99.9% sure you’re just another hype-merchant and you haven’t seen a single Bothelo game (most UK folks don’t even watch La Liga, let alone the 2nd division).
You think a segunda div player with 1 good season is better than a full on international?
And I’m not even a massive arshavin fan.
why would we go to the bother of sourcing talented players from distant lands, only to then never give them the chance to play in our shirt?
i want to see botelho in an arsenal shirt. whatever level is deemed suitable, reserves or whatever, i want to see him play in an arsenal team before a judgement is made on whether to let him leave.
the club can’t sign players and then never let us see them in an arsenal shirt. that’s totally wrong.
i’m stilll waiting to see vela being given a proper chance. merida and barazite got no love. it’s a bit sick actually. not good behaviour from the club at all.
if you’re not willing to give them a chance, don’t buy them in the first place!
He got 3 years to prove his worth, 3 years!! Is that nothing for you? You have to prove you’re worth the first team chance. You will not get it just because you belongs to Arsenal FC. Then all our kids from the local academy should be given the chance too. Sure he was good for the 2nd division in spain but that doesn’t mean he is good enough for our first team and a team that is suppose to win the CL and PL. God sake think for once.
And second of all you buy a player that you think have the potential to make it big and win us trophies. Is Bothelho the guy?????? NO chance in hell he is. Next season is suppose to be it. We have to win something and the signs are telling us we will invest in more experience. For 5 years have we given youngsters a chance and we won nothing. Me personally don’t give a shit about trophies as long as we are a top club and is recognise by the rest of the world. But many millions of fans care about trophies so something have to give. Gazidis said we need experience and we are link with experience players. That along with the new stupid rule in the league which tell us only 21-25 players or so in a squad make us go for the more expensive and experience players.
i’m not stupid, i’m not saying he’s going to be our saviour next season.
but i’m a bit sick of seeing the team lurch through the season with NO proper left sided attackers! how negligent is that!
arshavin has been efficient but really he is wasted out there. we need a proper replacement but we also need to have a bit more depth for that position too. botelho’s a total natural on that side. he would be an awesome no 2 or 3 in there.
if botelho’s not coming, vela must be brought back at least.
Gunner17….all I can really say is WOW…lol.
wtf? do you all have to repeat the same thing over and over again?
good enough or not, arsenal fans want to see the players they bought 4 years ago and stayed on the payroll all that time and never got to play for the team.
imagine money wasted on merida,bischoff,nordtveit,wellington,galindo,botelho, etc…. could have finance one or 2 big signings.
then maybe you will realise that youth project is not that cheap, just arsene personal obsession to win trophies with a young team.
well, time will tell!
But the thing is we can sell those players that didn’t make it to the first team, thus recovering some of the lost money.
merida bischoff barazite nordveit mmmm how they doing now?
It is as simple as this, this lad has played in spain for 3 or 4 seasons and has yet to prove himself. He has another season in which to do so. He is under a good manager, who he has worked with already, who must rate him. He will be up against the best team in the world, and some very good other teams, in front of thousands in some of the finest stadiums in the world. What should we do then, instead? Bring him to a new country and play him in the reserves at London Colney? That is really going to tell us if he is ready. This is a much better opportunity for him, lets hope not only Botelho but Wellington too takes the chance with both hands. Like i said lets hope they fancy a bit of Galindo and if it doesnt work out soon they could take Vela as well.
yes merida bischoff barazite…
maybe just maybe deadbeats brought up just to make up the statistcs and keep the project youth going.
i dont really like usmanov but certain things he said are corrects. the boards are making the unacceptable look acceptable. like what you just said,mr WWW. arsenal player should prove himself in another country before he comes here. are you really serious? with his contract only months to run out.
even spanish clubs are lining for free players from arsenal. they play for them and we pay for it.
thats accepting the unacceptable, arsenal player should kick wear arsenal shirt everyweek. not lavante.
sam – read the comment, i said he needs to prove himself before he plays for Arsenal, nothing about in another country. In Wenger’s eyes, Botelho has yet to do that. His performances have improved under this Manager, but his THREE yes THREE previous loans spells have been far from successful. Wenger, for all his doubter’s is no mug when it comes to young players. If this fella was good enough do you really think he would not have him next season? For goodness sake, Wenger is under more pressure than ever to win something next season, believe me if he thought it was worth bringing him over to help him out he would bring him. The fact is he sees, Clichy, Gibbs and Traore as better than him at Left Back, even if he does not sign someone else. He sees, Nasri, Arshavin, possibly Vela and any new signing he might bring in as a better option for Left Wing. IMO he is 100% right on this call.
Yes people wouldn’t it be great if every player you signed turned out to be great but that is flat out ridiculous. Not all 16 year olds will go on to be Arsenal first teamers and people must except. There is no point in bringing a player back for no reason.
Many names have been mentioned about the potential of the young stars. One thing for sure is not all of them will make it at the club. The kids are at different stages of their development. Some are late bloomers. We seem to have a lot of expectations from them and this trickles down to them too. At the age of 20 a guy needs first team football and if not given a chance he wants to move on. A team can only have 11 players at a time. Some of these guys become real stars at the age of 25 but by this time they have left the club. The club shld continue with its policy of identifying young talent and those who don’t make the grades at the club can be sold off to other teams with clauses in their contracts.
I don’t think you can argue that another season on loan is being unfair to Botelho. We’re talking about loaning him to the best division in the world for crying out loud. Not only that, the different styles of the La Liga to English leagues will allow him the space to hone his abilities with a bit less pressure to play it safe.
I think the main difference here is the new manager. After all, he gave Botelho plenty of games this season and if he’s taking over Levante with the view to give Wellington the same opportunity, I can’t see the harm in it.
We loaned Vela to West Brom but the manager change meant he got no game time, whereas this could be the opposite.
Wellington is talented, we can all see that. I think Levante treated him poorly last season and that is the largest part of his “attitude problem”. After all, Miyaichi was rated no higher than him until he got the game time. Maybe Wellington can do the same.
Also, I hope Vela gets his loan move to Bolton, it could do him wonders. He desperately needs regular game time in England or it will be curtains on his Arsenal career.
La Liga is not the best division in the world, the premier league is. They have 2 GOOD teams and 4 alright teams(villereal, A.Madrid, valencia, seville) where as the EPL has 4 GOOD teams. Plus, spanish defences are rubbish.
Yes the Premiership has a better spread of talent and is far more competitive than La Liga, who seem to only have 1 team in recent years.
But the fact is that the best players are there, for now, and not here.
Shame 99% of you have no clue about Botelho’s ability. If Wenger deems him not good enough then he won’t have bring him along for pre-season. With Gibbs and Clichy fit, and our left wing position stacked (at the moment), there’s no need for a player whos likely to not even be included on the bench to stay in England.
Shouts of Premiership loans are useless. It’s not like we can pick and choose who goes on loan to Premiership clubs. What are we gonna tempt them with? “Oh, I swear, I read on the youngguns blog that he had a decent season in Segunda Division, though the only footage I’ve seen of him are his three goals”.
Please.
a morrow – Wake up! we (fans) might think the EPL is the best league in the world, it is probably the most watched and most entertaining. But let’s face it even with its unbelievable story lines, sthe Bible is the most read book in the world, it certainly is not the best. The fact is the best players in the world are choosing Spain at the moment, It is where the World Champions, European Champions, World Club Champions and Champions League Winners come from.
All the best players choose Spain? Well take a look where they play instead. there are 2 teams that you can call world class teams the rest is good. While premier league have atleast 4 world class teams and the rest is as good as spain. I don’t know how you can compare a religion to entertaining football.
Who compared a religion to entertaining football? it makes me laugh how many people respond without actually reading a comment!
Yes, because there are only two teams to choose from, and both guarantee at least one medal.
Anyone believe there is any truth to the rumors about Seba Larsson returning to the club?
I think he would make a good squad player and he has a quality free kick as well.
Let him go back on loan,our problems all mount from us playing too many of these youngsters that don’t have required experience,he’s had one decent year,let him prove he can do better second year and come to us a star! Seb larsson go to Sunderland you ain’t what we need at all,I’d rather vieira came back on a free transfer as player coach along with the 9ft chris samba,Eden hazard and benzema,I think that’s all do-able in my opinion,especially if we fund most of it by selling squillaci,almunia,traore,rosicky,denilson and bendtner then giving diaby as a gift to all the arsenal fans,I’m sure I’m not the only one that doesn’t want this moron wearing our shirt again. Ps if Lansbury gets sold I’ll be disgusted.
Best league is just a matter of opinion! Personally i would say the premiership is the best. I dont see how sending a young player on loan to la liga can be a bad thing, if hes going to play 30 odd games for them and only a handful for us at best (in a season where our manager really needs to win something), is going to hurt hes development. Just a few questions to the people that say we waste money on players that are never given a chance: who watches them more us or our coaches and manager? What young player have we let go that is a superstar/world beater? If we didnt invest in our youth policy, could we have brought Cesc/Wilshere for the money we would ask for them now?
Super Rob>
Are you a Spud in disguise, or just the worst Arsenal fan in the world? I really, really hate the way scum like you are associated with our club.
@dave..spud in disguise,get a life mate I am a season ticket holder and have been supporting this club well before the wenger era unlike some others. I’d like to know what makes my comments so bad exactly?Too much to ask that the dead wood almunia,traore,squillaci,denilson,rosicky,bendtner go?Am I a spud for saying I’m disgusted that diaby has blatantly touted himself to other clubs by stating he walks round in a spurs shirt,openly stating ‘hate me now gooners me thinks?I’m happy withthe rest of the squad and asking for 3-4 experienced or high level players which is do able to help our young players along is what we need now and not botelho right now or an ex arsenal reserve nit deemed good enough but now suddenly is because he’s free,botelho will benefit from a season playing regularly and maturing. Yes I’d take vieira back because he’d be good around these boys,tell me I’m wrong,the guys a winner!Or maybe it’s because I said I’d be annoyed if Lansbury was sold?He deserves a chance in the squad,he’s worked his socks off on loans! Now read my post properly dave you pleb or at least make a proper point rather than stating you’re the only true arsenal fan in the world,for all I know you couldve followed us from 1998 and be a hanger on,armchair fan so don’t you dare accuse me of not loving my club
was excited in january when we signed wellington but then he went on to only make 2 loan appeareances for levante so why loan him back there if he gets no chances?