According to Football.London, Paris Saint-Germain are the latest club to be linked with a move for out-of-favour midfielder Matteo Guendouzi.
The 21-year-old looks destined to leave Arsenal this summer after his huge falling out with Mikel Arteta who is reportedly eager to replace him with Atletico Madrid’s Thomas Partey.
The Gunners paid French side Lorient around £7 million to recruit Guendouzi two years ago and are said to be looking for a big profit on that figure. Barcelona have been touted as one destination, as have Unai Emery’s Villarreal, who’d like him on a season-long loan deal.
Guendouzi is no stranger to PSG. He was on their books as a youngster for nine years before switching to Lorient where he went onto establish himself in the first team.
While it would be lovely to think that the Ligue 1 giants are interested – they are absolutely loaded after all – this link feels a bit fanciful.
We can’t put our finger on why it just does. So there.
If PSG donates $70m for Our precious Gwen, we might consider it after all. Life’s never been balanced
Bendtner 2.0…
It’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance
But not in his case
That sums it up perfectly. Get rid.
I dunno, I feel Bendtner got a lot of stick, some of it warranted, sure. But there were moments where he was very good for us. I think his biggest problem was his ego, great to have ambition, but it was often misplaced with Niklas. Guendouzi on the other hand, I dunno, seems that he has moments where he’s decent, but the rest of the game seems to run about alot with no discipline, positional awareness or much else of note. Could be a good player if he knuckled down, Arteta seems ideal to nurture him. Emery, not so much.… Read more »
I miss Nick. Remember him coming on as sub against Spuds at a corner and absolutely cunting in a header. Pity his ego needed a seat on the team bus too.
I also never had the feeling that Bendtner wasn’t up for it. Regardless of whether his talent was worthy of his ego, I would never have considered him passive.
But Guen is not yet a Lord
Ideal club for guendo. He can win the league every year with minimal effort.
Exactly the kind of suitors we need – keen to buy French and with fathomless pockets to make expensive mistakes with.
No point in loaning him out, because in a year his value drops. Unless the loan comes with an obligation to buy.
He’s potentially good, but his character will prevent him from being great. Plenty of examples out there, like Balotelli in many ways. Has a chip on his shoulder and thinks he’s better than what he actually is. Get rid. Has to worth 30 million though because I’ve seen far worse players go for similar fees.
If he plays well and keeps his place in the French national squad, how exactly do you see his value dropping??
If anything it will rise with a loan. However if 30-40 million comes in this summer I’d take it.
He has 2 years left on his contract and there’s no way we’re extending him. We have to sell him now as we don’t want him running his contract down to one year.
I see his value dropping by assuming that he will get minimal involvement in any meaningful games. First of all because he is not good enough for them and second of all because Tuchel seems to me like a no nonsense guy as well.
I doubt we’ll get £30 million for him in the current market. Any player (or anything else, come to that) in the end is only “worth” what someone is prepared to pay and I would have thought we’d jump at around £20 million or so against a £7 million outlay. Given it seems Arteta wants him gone asap, a reasonable offer will achieve that rather than playing hardball over the fee. We’ll see, as always.
I love it when people try to apply logic to football economics. If the deals going ahead current in the current market are anything to go by, nothing has changed.
I think I said that “Any player (or anything else, come to that) in the end is only “worth” what someone is prepared to pay…” Yep, I’ve just read it. If another club thinks he’s worth £30 million to them, they’ll pay it. No argument. However, the huge question mark over the current market is around Covid (which IS potentially a huge change, unless it suddenly disappears this Summer). If match day receipts, commercial sponsorship and TV revenues are all likely to be reduced, splashing the cash warrants a second, or even third, thought whereas before it might not have… Read more »
Absolutely right about perceived value. Similarly, I’m quite sceptical about various clubs’ stated hard line on selling prices. I realize that logic and football seldom accompany each other but these are tough times for everyone and with revenue drying up, prices should come down, at least for most.
I would strongly suspect that if you look at transfer activity as a whole this year, it will be the first year it actually drops in quite some time. There will be the very top end of the market where a few clubs with owners who will see this as the opportunity to buy talent without any real competition, but that’s just a handful of clubs globally. A few of the early deals are those types of clubs – City & Chelsea.
I agree with your assessment, his attitude will be his downfall. I’m all for protecting each other on the field, but please try to affect the scoreline by playing football not grab opposition players by the neck.
I think he will become really good. He is just a young boy right now. And two strong personalities clashed (him and Arteta). It just wasnt meant to be with us, but the boy can play football
Apparently Unai wants him
We need to offload several players asap – hopefully including Guendouzi – to try and balance the books. The players wage bill has increased with Auba’s reported new deal (by around an extra £3.6m a year for him) and Willian will add a reported £7.5 million a year in new expenditure. To put this in perspective, we’ve just cut over 50 non-playing staff to save less than £3 million a year. As there are supposedly several other transfers in the pipeline – meaning more expenditure in both fees and wages – this clearly can’t go on without a fair number… Read more »
Sorry mate, the sacking of 50 club employees has nothing to do with buying, selling or paying the players wages, lets not fall for the claptrap that the club produced in its statement.
I didn’t say it had anything to do with the playing side – I said “To put this in perspective, we’ve just cut over 50 non-playing staff to save less than £3 million a year.” It’s perspective, not comparison. The main point I was making still stands – if we are/will be paying out more money in wages and transfers, we must balance this through sales.
I can’t believe that we gave so much gametime to a guy that showed nothing on the pitch.. and let Torreira sit on the bench. Yes Lucas was injured, but before that Mateo was getting all the action. I’m all for showing faith in young players but everyone could clearly see that Mateo wasn’t the real deal. I always thought Guendouzi was a bad fit, he has no positional awareness and he does not do what we need our midfielders to do. If we’re going to play with 2 midfielders we need a partnership that works, not just players that… Read more »
With respect. That is utter bollocks my friend.
How can you clearly see he is not the real deal? He played 2100 Premier league minutes at age 19, then 1700 at age 20. Nobody has done that since Fabregas.
Positional awareness is rarely a player’s strength at his age, and he may not have featured in a while, but let’s not dismiss his talent like that.
Fabregas broke into a much stronger midfield and performed way better. Guendouzi has the odd great game. No doubt he’s a big talent but him and cesc are cut from a completely different cloth
To be honest, though I wouldn’t like to demarket him, but I was rarely impressed by his contribution during matches (in spite of his supposedly young age). The earlier he leaves, the better for all involved.
Guendouzi is like a metaphor of the Emery era for me.
Showed promise of being a robust if non-spectacular midfilder at times, but mostly floundered around the place taking too long to make decisions and slowing things down.
It didn’t take long for his ‘passion’ to be correctly reframed as petulance.
The kids ego is on different level to his ability on the pitch. This is one that I do not see coming back to haunt us. I’d take any offer above £20m.
With respect, his career stats are anything but “real deal”.
Appearances – 57 Goals – 0 Assists – 1 Cautions – 15
Tackle % – 56% Cross Accuracy – 10% Aerial Wins – 43% Duel Wins – 55%
He is wayyyyyyyy overrated. Take the money and run!
And how much was that attributable to Emery’s fascination with this boy? How many of those minutes do we have commenting of Guendouzi’s headless running?
Hope he goes. Hugely promising player though whose faults had little to do with his ability as a player
To be honest there are plenty of aspects of his game that frustrate the f*ck out of me too. Really glaring flaws actually- massively lightweight (nearly every time he goes in for a 50/50 you know he’s not coming away with the ball), his positional awareness borders on negligent, lacks any pace to go past players, and he’s one of the worst headers of the ball I’ve ever seen. His main strength seems to have been being composed on the ball for his age. For all the hype in the early Emery days, I’m not seeing much from him to… Read more »
I think all Guendouzi needs is a good man-manager to take him under his wing and make him a good professional. Letting him go is a mistake and I am convinced he will be a top player elsewhere.
I’m not. I really don’t see what he brings to the team in terms of end product. No left foot, no goals, can’t cross the ball, runs into dead ends. He’s a decent-ish, young-ish player who gets a lot of hype. I struggle to see anyone paying more than about 12M honestly. All the attitude and little of the ability doesn’t scream must have at me.
Take the 1st decent offer, add in a sell on clause and move on Arsenal
Without attitudinal change, he will still end up bang average player.
He’s young. He still has the chance to mature and have a career, if he figures out not to take himself so seriously. I guess we don’t think he ever do that, but now he falls into the “damaged goods” market. It may very well be that all we can get is 15 to 20 (select denomination).
I think we’ll regret losing him. That’s not to say Arteta doesn’t know what he’s doing (if his attitude is wrong, we shouldn’t compromise on standards) but I think he’ll turn into a good player. Everything he’s missing in his game he’ll gain over the next few years so it’s a shame he hasn’t reached maturity during his spell here.
I’m guessing there’s no way back…
He definitely has some potential, but we need players that want to show the manager they deserve a spot in the squad by working their tails off in training (such as AMN, Ceballos, Xhaka, etc.).
I have no problem with Arteta or those involved with Guendouzi but objectively speaking, they have gone too hard on the young Man, the incident against Brighton is not the worst thing in the world, I’m all for instilling discipline but we made a big deal out of this. My opinion. Also we should be able to streamline wayward players to become disciplined b’se in an environment of dealing with people, they will always be there.
I don’t think it’s specifically the Brighton incident. It will have played a part for sure, but I think there’s also been a lot of off-pitch issues as well.
He was horrible in the 3-0 defeat to City after the restart. KDB destroyed him that day. He was bad in the Brighton game too. We beat City the next two meetings without him and KDB was largely ineffective. That’s not a coincidence..
Arteta had enough with his ineffective play on the field, let alone the off the field issues. Good riddance!
If it was always about a player not fitting into Mikel’s plans, they shld have been clear, we can’t hide behind small off pitch issues to get rid off him and this proves my point, a player that a manager clearly see a future with wld get away with what Guendouzi did. That was honestly minor
But the Brighton incident wasn’t the only incident. He reportedly had a bust-up with Arteta/the coaching staff in Dubai. And Guendouzi isn’t just acting up in Arsenal. He had issues in Lorient, too.
Plus it’s not like Arteta hasn’t given players the chance to redeem themselves. Ceballos, Xhaka and AMN were all given the opportunity to prove themselves and got themselves back into the team.
Publically, we only know 2 and holding his past before he joined us is not fair much as it provides context to his attitude
Guendouzi showed promise in a few games early in the season (Aston Villa, Spurs), but he doesn’t seem like a player who can impact each and every game. At times, he does show great vision (assist versus Spurs) but it’s extremely rare. And he’s got plenty of energy, but nothing else that screams there’s a potentially world class midfielder in here. Also, people are forgetting that his disciplinary issues didn’t begin with the Brighton match. Even the Lorient manager felt he needed to improve his attitude. In the current climate, I’d take even a 20m offer and use it to… Read more »
That was his 1 and only assist in an Arsenal shirt. His career stats:
Appearances – 57 Goals – 0 Assists – 1 Cautions – 15
Tackle % – 56% Cross Accuracy – 10% Aerial Wins – 43% Duel Wins – 55%
The stats don’t lie, he is wayyyyyyyy overrated. Take the money and run!
Am I living in a parallel universe or did Guendouzi not already play for PSG?
I could have sworn that Emery convinced him to join Arsenal off the back off his relationship with him from his time at PSG.
I now keep seeing that we signed him from Lorient when all this time I thought it was PSG.
Am I going mad?
You may be getting him confused with the other fella we were supposed to be buying from PSG, only for him to sign a new deal. We subsequently signed Guendouzi from Lorient. Guendouzi joined Lorient from PSG, so Emery apparently knew him from then.
I think the confusion is with Rabiot, who also had big hair and big attitude problems with coaches. Rabiot, however, is a genuinely world-class talent.
Ahh yes! Thanks guys, that has jogged my memory haha 🙂
Guess you’re confusing him with Yacine Adli who later joined Bordeaux. He had trips to the emirates too, was a sure shot to join us but didn’t. Small Afro and French Algerian.
This is pretty good news, if true. We can probably fetch 30-40 with PSG interested. I don’t necessarily want him loaned. It’s better to get what we can for him and just move on.
You are over-flogging this redundancy issue. You seem too overly sentimental about this! Arsenal cannot be expected to keep stadium catering staff, security, cleaning crew, etc in an empty stadium I really don’t care who the players’ agents are, as long as we bring in players that Arteta wants. There is no fool-proof method to recruit players. You can have flops whether they’re agent-recruited, or data-led recruited. Examples abound both ways. Arteta has to guide the development of young players, to avoid burn-outs, early long-term injuries(remember Wilshere, Gnabry). The squad needs experienced leaders along our young bucks. Examples abound of… Read more »
I think the people you mention in your 1st paragraph would be contractors rather than on the Arsenal payroll. The redundancies are more likely to be back-office staff, plus those people involved in the scouting network (maybe some of the coaching staff as well, I guess?).
SHOW US THE MONEY
Good luck to him. Has a lot of potential but never as good as people made out. Regardless of attitude problems, it’s hard to see how he fits into the midfield anyway. He’s neither a big tackler nor a distributor and doesn’t have the discipline to yet be s holding mid. Nor does he have the attacking attributes of a true box-to-box type. Still, if he sorts his head out he could become a top player elsewhere.
Not sure how the recruiting at PSG works but i am pretty sure Tuchel and Doozy is not a ideal mixup and doubt they are keen to work with each other. But fingers crossed!
It is extremely likely that if you managed to do something that made Arteta ban you from the matchday squad, as soon as you do the same to Tuchel, he will freeze you out as well.
Matteo is a really fine young player we shouldn’t lose yet. So many candidates for offloading from that midfield, who can’t pass or run forward with the ball, not him.
Let him go is PSG are knocking and rinse them for every penny. Keep Torreira and sign Partey with the cash.
I think he’s a good player, and young too. He can become the Viera we’ve been clamouring for with time. let’s not just kick him out just for one mistake he made… players have their own problems on and off the pitch. I think he can be managed, to become better character/attitude wise,
except the manager lacks the quality to manage players like him.
I think we should aim to get a deal done with PSG in the region of £40m or close as possible.
Once agreed, send David Luiz in place of him and hope that they dont notice. We could then re-sell Guendouzi to someone else for another £40m ?
40m you are having a laugh. 😀
No one will pay that for Guendouzi.
Bendtner, för his failings, was a proven talented striker who threw it away by being a dickhead. Guendouzi has shown promise but has yet to confirm himself as a true talent.
That aside I hope we get a good wedge for Guendouzi if we manage to move him on.
Don’t understand club. He’s a good player slightly impetuous and too impatient at the moment. We should be less emotive and more measured. Send him out on loan, let him cool off. If he can learn the ropes with consistent footy which is what he wants, great, assess in a year’s time. Worse to worse sell at a higher price than now. If not and he remained on the bench, he will be chastened by the experience and understand the opportunity he has with us. Very foolish by club IMO to attempt to sell him particularly with others also potentially… Read more »
Its odd the way the club is doing its business. Of course some people will only ever see positives. Give them Luiz and they think they have a winner or Mhkitryan. We’ve been here before. IMO we should not be signing a 32yr old winger. He may give us one good season but on 200K and 3 years he will saddle our wage bill just like Pepe and Saliba deal seem good with staggered payment but in reality has 20m commitment impacting our transfer window. Ditto with Aubameyang. As I mentioned, I would keep Laca with 2 years left on… Read more »
you would keep laca over auba? hahahahaha
You seem to take contradictory positions:
Sell Aubameyang because he’s waning, but then he may want to go to a bigger club to win trophies!
We have potential in young players to replace a proven goal scorer! And that’s all they are, potential
Sell Aubameyang even though Martinelli will not be available until next year. But bring in a back-up for Nketiah until then!
Again, all these positions are a jumble. Boy, am I glad you don’t run Arsenal
Lots of hot steaming poop, Blogs.???
A poor attitude held back many a promising footballer, he’s just the latest. Make him some else’s problem and making a profit on him would be a huge win. I don’t think he’ll ever be a great.
Wouldn’t mind selling to a state-owned club. They love a good shopping spree and their checks always clear.
Guendouzi sinc the joined the club seems to have a habit of reacting to decisions which go against him or concerning goals, which are directly related to him letting players run at him too easily. Or not tracking his man.
Haven’t been able to watch his individual reaction after conceding with a wider angle camera but I’m pretty sure he looks frustrated at his colleagues and expects the defenders to mop up his poor effort to track a man.
Need to get rid. It does seem toxic attitude which hasn’t changed over two years. And his banishment from the squad seems to indicate this may be true.
Apparently, Ramsey is out of favour at Juventus, now that Pirlo has taken over.
Perhaps a cheeky trade off with Guendouzi could bring us back our Welsh Jesus?
That would be absolutely fantastic but I wonder if Ramsey wants to “come home”. Perhaps he’s somehow shut that door, at least until a certain point in his career. Lots of things for him to consider. Family, media, etc etc.
He’s on 400k a week… I don’t think we’re even paying half of that.
Right, I’d forgotten about his massive salary!
He’d have to take quite the pay cut for us to consider him, but it would be sweet if by some miracle it were to happen.
He’ll be doing an Özil on Juve then.
It’s not often that I look forward to a player’s departure (Frank Spencer-esque German centre halves not withstanding) but this guy and the circus surrounding him is beginning to bore the shit out of me. He’s good, just not THAT good – which is what he thinks he is. Get rid.