Arsenal and Matteo Guendouzi: Is perfect the word I’m looking for?

Arsenal may not have had the best start to the season, but Matteo Guendouzi has. What’s the word I’m looking for here… perfect?

It’s hard to boil down what has gone wrong at the start of this Arsenal season, because, for starters, it’s hard to say if it even needs boiling down. This is a new era, and it was always assumed that it might be a little rough at the start.

There have been defensive frailties and missed chances, bizarre individual gaffs and key player disappearances, but through it all, one man has stood out as a cornerstone of whatever successes we have had.

That man is Matteo Guendouzi.

I touched on this briefly in the player ratings post-Chelsea, but I just want to again draw attention to what exactly Unai Emery has asked of him.

At 19-years-old, he was brought into a team in transition. A team that was a major step up from Ligue 2, where he had been playing with Lorient. Many fans even expected Guendouzi to be in the reserves, given how young he is, but it hasn’t even been the reserves or the bench. It’s been the starting XI.

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Not only has Emery asked Guendouzi to go from Ligue 2 to top-tier Premier League action, he has asked him to start, and not just start, but start against Manchester City and Chelsea, two of the heavy-hitters in the heaviest-hitting league in the world.

Okay, that’s a big enough ask as it is. But it gets even bigger. Because if Guendouzi would have been unable to play to the level he’s been playing, I have no qualms with saying that it would have been much worse than what it’s been.

Guendouzi has won the ball back 16 times in two matches, split evenly between four tackles and four interceptions in both of the matches. Both of the matches against the best in England.

He’s been dispossessed twice.

This is a 19-year-old from Ligue 2 against two of the best teams in the game. Say what you will about any other aspect of Arsenal football club to start the season, but Guendouzi has been perfect, and I do mean perfect.

There is nothing else we could ask for out of the young man. He’s energetic, positive, and I already feel more confident in him than most other players on the pitch.

Never drop him. He’s going to play every game from now until 2035.