Arsenal face Andrey Santos transfer decision amid Chelsea recall verdict

Chelsea are set for a January recall of loanee Andrey Santos from Nottingham Forest, football.london understand. Arsenal, like their West London rivals, are in a similar position and could match this with their own loanee.

Santos has featured for around just seven minutes of Premier League football since joining Forest on loan for the season after a previous loan back to former Brazilian side Vasco da Gama. He has been highly thought of but it seems Steve Cooper has not deemed the midfielder of a standard to include him in his side’s fight to stay in the division for another season.

As mentioned, Arsenal have seen their own Forest loanee face difficulties which have led most recently to the deletion of their Instagram account. Nuno Tavares joined the East Midlands club at the end of the summer window in a loan which does include an option to buy.

The Gunners typically prefer to include recall clauses in their loanee deals in order to exercise control over the situation should they deem the player’s game time proving more limited than they expected. However, the Portuguese youth international has an option which Forest could have activated to buy the player permanently in the summer for £12million.

Although with the limited game time for the 23-year-old, it seems unlikely Copper’s side would be activating the option in the deal. Whether the full-back has a recall clause like Santos is unclear.

Fellow Arsenal loanee Marquinhos is currently away with Nantes but has struggled for minutes although did see his spell interrupted by his inclusion in Brazil’s Pan-America Games squad. As it stands, football.londonunderstands that the club want to allow the winger to continue on in France despite his struggles to establish himself in the starting eleven.

It is within Arsenal’s interest for Tavares to find a club where he can play considering the need to recoup as much of the sub-£10million fee they paid Benfica in 2021. Arsenal have plenty of options at left-back now with Jurrien Timber, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Takehiro Tomiyasu making it near-impossible for Tavares to consider a future in north London.

He spent last season on loan with Marseille and it seems he has always been thinking about a permanent way out of Mikel Arteta’s squad anyway. He admitted to reporters that he wanted an option included in the last loan but Arsenal refused.

"I came to Marseille to finally be able to play in my position,” he told RMC Sport. “When signing with Marseille, I wanted to have an option to buy, but Arsenal refused.

"With my agents, we always wanted this purchase option, but Arsenal didn’t." It seems that an exit from the club does not look immediately clear despite the club’s apparent willingness to make it happen with the option included in his current switch.