According to Foot Mercato, Unai Emery wants to renew his relationship with Matteo Guendouzi by recruiting the Frenchman on loan for his new club Villarreal.
The 21-year-old’s days at the Emirates look to be numbered after a huge falling out with Mikel Arteta and the club are actively trying to move him on this summer. While the player is not short of suitors, the fact we’re trying to use him as a makeweight to get deals of our own over the line is proving more complicated.
The Gunners have been linked with Atletico Madrid’s Thomas Partey and Barcelona’s Philippe Coutinho; both of whom are way out of our budget on a cash-only basis.
Having struck up a strong relationship with the player during his ill-fated time in London, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Emery, appointed head coach of the Yellow Submarines last week, fancies taking advantage of the situation. Indeed, the report claims he’s already spoken to his former charge.
For Guendouzi, the opportunity to showcase his skills in La Liga, to work with a coach he knows and the prospect of rehabilitating his reputation away from the spotlight of a big club just about makes sense.
We’re not sure it does us any favours though. Yes, we’d get his wages, which aren’t that high, off the books but surely we’d be much better placed getting a decent fee for him now while his market value remains high? Do they have any players we might want? We’d probably have taken Santi back but he saw Emery coming and scarpered to the Middle East for a payday, so that’s off the cards.
There’s talk of Villarreal retaining an option to buy if they were to take him on loan, but unless they are planning on breaking their transfer record – currently £21 million for Paco Alcacer – that seems unlikely.
The report does suggest that Barcelona’s sporting director Eric Abidal likes Guendouzi’s profile, so there’s an outside chance that someone is using the Emery link to make mischief and try to hurry things along on that front.
Of course, with it being silly season, the whole thing could be nonsense.
Haha! As long as it’s for good money, why not?!
Good riddance.
Loans are invariably not for good money
No loan, 40m+ and he’s yours Emery. I’m not surprised by this he Guendouzi almost single handedly helped save Unai from getting the sack so many times. I still think Guendouzi is a solid player with great potential but I stand with Arteta on this as I do not condone his attitude and actions. No matter who it is Ozil or Guendouzi every player has to fall inline with the vision and culture of professionalism that is required to succeed at a big club like arsenal. Enough is enough Arsene Wenger as great as he was tolerated too much sht… Read more »
Even without results – if someone thinks he is above the club, then he isn’t needed. Plenty of good players out there looking for a chance.
20 million + 20% from next sale would be acceptable
Would it? £20m isn’t much in today’s market. Even if Guendouzi was to be resold down the line for £50m or so, we’d still only end up with £30m based on your proposed 20% cut.
I know he seems to have an ego issue, but he’s still a very young player with a lot of potential if the right manager finds him. I’d expect at the very minimum £30m up front so we can reinvest, not £20m with some murky chance of making a bit more one day.
How is 20% of 50 million 30 million?
I think he’s saying £20 million initial fee then 20% of potentially £50 million of that clubs sale in the future, which is a further £10 million. Therefore £30 million.
Not saying I agree or not. Just showing you the maths.
As mentioned Villarreal highest spend to date is 12M. Unlikely as money available to most La Liga clubs is minuscule compared to EFL.
Barcelona would be best bet particularly as they have history of buying our players good and bad.
No loan, for me; for sale only (and for good money).
No loan, only buy.
Could make sense – he might be worth more in a year, if he does well on loan and the world’s more back to normal by then (here’s hoping). We don’t have to sell everyone now, in what’s probably going to be a terrible market.
And maybe even, after a year away, he might grow up a little and we might be able to rehabilitate him. Probably not, but you never know.
Fair point
We’d need to sign him to an extension before letting him go on loan. He’s got 2 years left so whilst there’s merit in what you say, we can’t allow him to go into the last year.
Anyone else miss the days when the club used to talk about letting misbehaving players rot in the reserves for the remainder of their contract? Feels like player power is all power nowadays.
Think he has 2 years left so year’s loan won’t work that way.
While the world hopefully is a better place in terms of public health, in terms of the massive jobless and market getting back to pre-pandemic, will have take longer than a year to recover.
We want / have to buy in this terrible market, we don’t have the money to buy. Hence, we have to sell in the terrible market.
Yeah but fuck Emery and what he wants
Big money or player exchange only. I’d be happy with the reported £9m + Guendouzi for Coutinho
I know this doesn’t help out cause but… welcome to each other ?
When does the poo-o-meter come out?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdYlUkHjELY
????
Please can he come take him already? We are tired of his issues already. Having to deal with the Ozil case is draining already, we can’t add another tumultuous character to our situation. For all his clueless management, Unai “Ebening” Emery brought the best out of Guendouzi, I think he flourishes in a set-up with less responsibility. In an Arteta team where every player is expected to be disciplined and responsible on/off the pitch, he was always gonna struggle. Right now, a fiery character like Guendouzi isn’t what we need. Maybe when we are finally competing for titles and he’s… Read more »
What is the mentality to play for a big club?
Zidane headbutted an opponent in a WC final then left the pitch and broke a glass door. For all the problems Benzema has had in France, he’s proved to be a great professional at Real Madrid. Personally, I would like to have a couple of tough quality players in the team and hoped he could become one.
We were tied for the most cautions this season. Sheffield and Wolves played very organized defense without the thuggery and cards. Guen wouldn’t start for them and surely shouldn’t be starting for us.
We like to cheat now
Zidane in literally his last ever game as a professional on the biggest stage in world football after a notorious wind in merchant made comments about his sick mother and sister lost his cool, earning himself the first and only red card of his 15+years career.
You want to compare that to Guendouzi? Come on now.
I guess his point is no one is perfect. We’ve had crazies of our own. That said we can’t wait forever for someone to realign their head. If Matteo can’t find it in him to conform, it’s better he makes his bread elsewhere.
He was provoked…but he was sent off 14 times in his career. Not once.
Ah you are right, for some reason I confuse him with Gary Lineker when it comes to that particular issue (never getting a red card).
On loan? Piss off!
Puts me off how this kid has bags of ability, privilege to play for a big club in the premier league but can’t admit he’s made a mistake and try to work hard and get back to the manager’s good side like other players have.
He will live to regret this wasted opportunity.
Unfortunately no one will pay exorbitant amounts of money in today’s market for an unsettled and unreliable player.
O think he thought we’d would not have Europe an football next season
So long as Emery PAYS a good fee i would let Guendouzi go.
I’d swap him there for Pau Torres right now. He’s basically David Luiz without the mistakes.
Swap him for Pau Torres. I’ll happily pack Guendouzi’s bags for him!
Can they pay? Presumably not, they’re not a rich club to begin with even before Covid considerations.
If they can’t pay, they can fuck right off.
Swap with Pau Torres?
Left footed CB, 23 years old, 191cm, market value above 30M.. I think It would be great deal for us as with getting Guendouzi out of the club we would adress our biggest weakness (left CB)
Goodly Ebening!
?????
C’mon you are better than that
Didn’t we buy him for something like 7 million from the second or third tier French league? Anything north of 10 milion is a profit and seeing since relations have sourced just let him go and he done with it.
Because that’s not good business practice. He’s a valuable asset, and should be sold as such.
It looks like the clubs that can really pay aren’t interested and the ones who are interested don’t have much money. What’s the answer? Sit on him and watch his value decrease like we have with others or take what realistic money there is and get rid of a player we don’t want anymore?
Clearly Arsenal don’t want him and we urgently need to raise money so we can to begin to overhaul the squad. If a deal is possible we should certainly go for it – even if we can only get our money back on the transfer fee. The main priority is to offload unwanted players from the squad as fast as we can to both reduce the wage bill and, hopefully, add something to Arteta’s transfer kitty.
Hope he learns to push the ball forward on his loan spell, although i doubt it with Unai on the wheel!
What happened to going to Barcelona? If he’s off then bye bye and good luck I guess.
We should only consider sales and player swaps given our finances. Loaning him out doesn’t help us this summer, and we need all the help we can get!
Yes, I agree with your comment about our finances. I suspect that some Gooners don’t quite realise how fragile our financial position is, even more so because of the knock-on from Covid. I think we’ll need to shift (if we can) several players if Arteta’s presumably wide-ranging plans are to be achieved in this window. Any transfers in will almost certainly be on installments, as last Summer’s were, so we’ll continue to gamble on future success, or risk budget cuts.
Just read the end of season player ratings. And I accept these are wholly subjective. But Bloggs was way too dismissive of Guendouzi – “won’t be missed” ? He will be if we don’t get someone in, who delivers what he could and sometimes did. I get the point that he was indisciplined and fell foul of Arteta – and has to go because that sort of nonsense cannot be allowed. But there is a really good player there in the raw material of the man and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a lot more from him, if he… Read more »
“The report does suggest that Barcelona’s sporting director Eric Abidal likes Guendouzi’s profile, so there’s an outside chance that someone is using the Emery link to make mischief and try to hurry things along on that front.”
Now, i like this conspiracy. 😉
3/10… also i want high fee!! Clown. Block this in your morning drunk stupor.
The only upside of this transfer, other than the money, is that I don’t have to pretend I didn’t think Guendouzi was obviously a massive prat when he was playing for us haha
Doubt Villarreal will have the cash we want for him – £30 – £40M at least for a potential … troublemaker … I’d rate him the same as Rabiot … unfulfilled potential that could go either way
If Emery takes him off our hands for good $ then (almost) all is forgiven
It’s too bad it’s only for a loan, because that would be a marriage made in heaven! As for Guendouzi, I think he’s a good player on his day. But given his inflated sense of self, you’d think he’s the next Zidane. Truthfully he can barely lace the boots of Pascal Cygan. The sooner he leaves the better.