Arsenal Vs Manchester City: Time to trust Matteo Guendouzi?

Neither Lucas Torreira nor Granit Xhaka has played a minute of preseason football this summer. Is it time for Arsenal to trust Matteo Guendouzi on the opening weekend of the season against Manchester City?

With the World Cup making a mess of everyone’s schedules this summer, the first game of the season — for Arsenal, that comes on Sunday, August 12th, a 16:00 kick-off — comes round rather fast. It’s a little over a week away now, and it feels as though last season only just finished.

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Because of the rushed preseason, the added complexity of a new transfer deadline, August 9th, this year, the day before the start of the new season, there is a greater panic and unpreparedness rippling through the English clubs.

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Will those that have played at the World Cup be ready to play in that crucial first game? If not, are they fit enough to make the bench and feature in the final 20 minutes if needed? How risky is a manager prepared to be with certain players and their relative fitness? These are questions that have varying degrees of answers, but they will all comprise the reasoning behind many of the team selections we see on that first weekend.

And for Unai Emery and Arsenal, there is not a position that is more uncertain thanks to the extra rigours of the World Cup than central midfield. Of the assumed starters — Granit Xhaka, Lucas Torreira and Aaron Ramsey — only Ramsey has played any minutes in the preseason and he missed Wednesday night’s match against Chelsea with a hamstring issue. Torreira only returned to training last week and is on a new team in a new country altogether. Meanwhile, Xhaka has also only just arrived at London Colney and has a little over a week to prepare for Manchester City’s coming to the Emirates next Sunday.

This dilemma of fitness and readiness, then, begs the question: Is it time to trust Matteo Guendouzi?

The 19-year-old, who was signed earlier in the summer from Lorient having only made a handful of appearances for the Ligue 2 side, has been one of Arsenal’s best players this preseason, starting each of the International Champions Cup matches, playing the most minutes of anyone in those matches, other than Sead Kolasinac, and impressing greatly in a 90-minute performance versus Chelsea.

To play him against the Champions, arguably the greatest team in Premier League history, even if some of their star power is a little diminished thanks to their own World Cup difficulties, in his first competitive start for Arsenal, at the heart of a midfield battle that will likely feature David Silva, Fernandinho and others, on the opening day of the season is some risk. But Emery may not have a better option.

Ultimately, it comes down to the readiness of Xhaka, Torreira and Ramsey. Emery, I am sure, will be hoping all three are somehow fit enough to start. But if they aren’t, he may have to be willing to place his trust in young Matteo Guendouzi.