Marseille president Pablo Longoria has told French station RMC Sport that Matteo Guendouzi will sign a permanent contract with the Ligue 1 club at the end of the current season.
Banished by Mikel Arteta from the Arsenal first team in June 2020, the 22-year-old moved to the Stade Velodrome on a season-long loan in the summer with the French giants agreeing to buy the midfielder outright should he meet stipulated appearance criteria.
Get French Football News state that having played 38 games this season, Guendouzi has ticked the necessary boxes which means the Gunners will net a fee of some sort to bolster the coffers.
Given his eye-catching stats – the player has made 11 assists and scored four goals in all competitions – it’s fairly likely that the agreed fee is below his current market value, however, it still makes a change from paying people to leave.
Fabrizio Romano claims Guendouzi has agreed a three-year deal. We’ll certainly be curious to see if he makes it to the end of that; it’s a combustible pairing if ever we saw one.
All going well, Arsenal should do further deals for other loaned players.
Lucas Torreira and Fiorentina both seem happy with their arrangement, Dinos Mavropanos is due to stay at Stuttgart if they avoid relegation (something that isn’t inevitable) and Pablo Mari, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Reiss Nelson are also set to be made available.
Good luck to him at OM.
Indeed, best of luck Matteo. I feel like most of the discourse about this can be simplified to this – Do you want a side with Guendouzi, Aubamayang and Ozil in? Or do you want Arteta? I’ve heard a lot of “oh if Arteta could be more like this” or “if he would make an exception here”. But that’s just not his personality. And it’s Arteta (and his personality) that is steering us, at present, to top 4. We tried a team with these three in. And they didn’t get us top 4. I know a lot of people feel… Read more »
❝Cut me and I bleed extra strength hair gel.❞ — Brilliant!
Can’t help but wonder what impact the situation in Europe at the min will have on football going forward and that’s not to take away from the truly horrendous way things are unfolding in Ukraine.
Good player but him n Arteta got off on the wrong foot and seems his ego was a bit too big to reel back in. Cest la vie.
Good luck to him. We should be getting 25/30 for him as he will be a France regular in 2/3 seasons if he keeps his shit in check.
Excited to see the MF work have planned though. We could well end up with only Lokonga and Partey remaining so another 2 guys have to come in
How are we gonna get more money for him?
He’s not saying that. He’s saying that he thinks we should get 25-30m instead because of his future potential.
But no one will pay that now because it’s not warranted. I sure know that if we spent that sort of money today on that sort of player, everyone on here would lose the sh*t – and rightfully so.
No one will pay that now because we put players in the bargain box after any issue. Great business model.
Love what Arteta is doing, and if he thinks that a player must leave he needs to be backed.
Having said that, I found it really hard to give Edu some praise. Guendouzi and Mavro are both bright young prospects who were on a low when we loaned them out, why on earth would we put an obligation on their low value? loan, they will play and therefore rise value, then sell.
Not even mentioning that we overpaid on a lot of our transfer business
£9m does seem cheap. I would have thought £12-£15m for him easily.
If we sell Pepe in the summer we should be looking for £35m plus add ons, not circa £25m which is in the press…..and even at £35m we’re still making a huge loss, obviously.
I don’t think Pepe should be sold. We would then have to get a replacement for him.
We should keep him and rather get a new striker, replace Xhaka and get a left winger if Lacazette goes. That way, Martinelli can move centre.
We will certainly be in Europe next season – maybe CL – so squad depth will be key to our success on multiple fronts.
We have a lot of work to do without selling players that can make good backup. Pepe can contribute off the bench if he is in the mood. Rather than replace Xhaka, we should find an upgrade and keep Xhaka as El Neny’s replacement. We already need to find Auba replacement + one or both of Laca and Eddie’s replacement. Add to that some potential cover at other positions, then the fact we may need a bigger “competitive” squad for Europe than we have this year. So much business to do, that is why even if they couldn’t get people… Read more »
Nobody is going to pay £35 million for Pepe.
If we sell him, we’ll need to sign a replacement as backup to Saka anyway so I’d be fine with him staying and being an impact sub for us next season when we’re back in Europe.
Of course he may wish to leave in the summer though.
I’d love him too succeed, but he just needs to fit into the press etc. Napoli might pay that for him, especially if they sell Osimhen for mega money…
Talking of strikers, does anyone else think Jonathan David looks a bit slow and clumsy?
I’d much rather have Isak, Schick, Nunez or Osimhen…
The low value obligation for Guendouzi was probably a combination of him only having 1 year left on his contract this summer, and the deal being made in July 2021 during the pandemic when clubs were still uncertain of their short-term financial future.
I wish him luck but am also glad this chapter is over (aside from agenda driven people tweeting madly every time he has a good game for the next 5 years).
The team we have now gels so well together and seems to be free of the issues of yesteryear. Let’s build on that and recruit well in the summer.
Average footballer and a bit of a twat.
Good riddance.
Better than a bit of a footballer and an average twat I suppose…
“. . . a fee of some sort.” A truckload of baguettes was reportedly seen being offloaded at the London Colney cafeteria late yesterday.
Arsenal have strenuously denied the rumors that said truck or it’s contents are in any way related to the transfer Mathieu Guendouzi. The statement ended with a warning to Marseilles: “Without the other truckload of croissants, Marseilles can simply forget about the deal. We don’t sell our players for peanuts.”
Good one, Zip. I can’t stop laughing at that.
I bet he’ll be sold on for 30/40mill within the next 2 seasons. A shame it didn’t work out for him at Arsenal.
No it’s not a shame, he’s not up to standards for a title winning club, still gets passed by defensively and as mentioned earlier, is a bit of a twat. Once the manager determines your true nature, you are either on the team or off at the next opportunity, a la Auba. Manager is ruthless in making these decisions and that’s what is needed, especially when we had so much dead wood on the payroll.
Its a shame he didn’t have his head screwed on properly early enough, because quality wise he would’ve been ready to replace Xhaka next season.
He was 19 for Christ sake. What are you people expecting? Matteo is a fantastic player that was mismanaged by Arsenal.
I respectfully disagree. It is 100% personality. We all enjoyed watching Saka play at 19 and no issues whatsoever from him, I love Guendouzi and his football but you cannot deny he’s a hothead.
Let’s not pretend we don’t have loads of players around his age in & around the 1st team. Literally none of them have had similar issues.
Wish him all the best but not at all bothered he’s not at the club anymore. We’ve got better & younger players.
Good luck to him, genuinely hope he makes it work over there, keeps developing his game, and stops getting involved in every on-pitch altercation!
The guy is an altercation magnet, he absolutely can’t help himself 😂
Must back the manager at all costs.
20 year olds must be mentally ready no second chances. Doesn’t matter if you’re a future international.
Off the top of my head we’ve got about 6 full internationals between the ages of 20-23 in/around the 1st team.
If that’s the result of expecting players to maintain a certain standard, regardless of age, then I’m all for it.
Exactly.
Matteo is a great player that was mismanaged by us at an early age. He will be world class in a few years.
No he’s clearly a twat.
He will only disrupt the good guys we have like Odegaard
No he won’t. He’s an average player that still has bad defensive positioning and gets easily bypassed in the midfield. The cult of Guendouzi.
I’m not sure what he’s been like at Marseille but from what I understand he was incredibly immature at Arsenal, often late to meetings / training and had heavy nights out way too often.
On the pitch he looked very combative and technically sound (although it must be said that his goal contribution numbers were awful!) Unfortunately with Matteo, it’s his off-field antics that don’t bode well with any manager he’s had.
Either way, it’s the end of his chapter at Arsenal and therefore it’s the end of my caring of him…
COYG!
Didn’t he supposedly get drunk in Dubai on the winter training camp last season(?) & offer Arteta outside for a fight then have to be dragged back to his hotel room before refusing to apologise despite Xhaka, Laca, Auba, Luiz & Leno asking him too? Even his manager on loan at Hertha told him to grow up & called him a “bit of a twat” But yet some people seem to think he was mis-managed 🤣. Good luck to OM I say cause they’ll need it
The Greatest Midfielder That Ever Lived.
NOT
Slight change of subject but it just occurred to me for all silent Stan’s faults imagine if we had gone with Alisher Usmanov now. We would be up shit creek without a paddle!