Matteo Guendouzi has so far started in each and every Premier League game this season for Arsenal and thanks to his impressive performances, the youngster also received his maiden national team call-up.
The midfielder was named in the French squad this international break after Paul Pogba pulled out due to an injury but during both the Les Blues games, he remained an unused substitute.
But speaking about the 20-year-old and the kind of impact which he has made this season, Unai Emery has hinted that Matteo Guendouzi could become the role model to all the other youngsters who have been trying to break into the Gunners’ Xi this season.
“Matteo is a very good example for how we can develop our young players, with new young players or the spirit within the players who are here now,” Emery told Arsenal.com.
“He started last year, at the beginning, with some doubts about his adaptation after he came from Lorient in the second division in France.
“He was very young, but his ambition and his wish to adapt very quickly, as well as his quality, were very good for us. He started playing and training with us, and after, his progress and development during the season was amazing.
“But also, we were working with him on some details we needed to improve with him – his food, his body, how we can work to make it stronger, his arms, his body, his legs.
“This year, I think he’s taken one step ahead, improving and also giving us one level more in his performances. We want to continue with him, working in each training session and in each match.
“For him and for us, it’s a big challenge to take that step ahead. For other young players, his spirit, his progress, his development is a good example, for Willock, for Emile Smith Rowe, for Reiss Nelson. It’s a very good example for everybody.”
VERDICT:
Matteo Guendouzi has grown in leaps and bounds over the past 12 months but we think the manager is putting too much pressure on the youngster.
Despite all the heroics, he is still 20 years old and even Didier Deschamps recently came out and urged Unai Emery to take it easy with the midfielder.
“Do not ask too much, he’s a young player, who is still the Espoirs generation, who plays a lot of matches with Arsenal where there is strong competition,” Deschamps said(as quoted by Four Four Two).
“He’s the modern midfielder, box to box as they say there, with a lot of power and technical quality too. He’s there. What I expect from young people is that they bring this freshness, this dynamism. He is a very young player but with a very big potential.”
Obviously, the Frenchman has the potential to shine for the Gunners but right now the coaching staff need to handle him very tactfully or else he might very well join a long list of unfulfilled talents at the club.
