Arsenal: Any excuse to play Matteo Guendouzi is a good one

Arsenal are finding more reasons to start Matteo Guendouzi and, honestly, any reasons to start him is a good reason, because he’s just awesome.

Arsenal‘s midfield has been arguably their strongest part of the formation all year. And it didn’t start where you would have expected it to. It started with Matteo Guendouzi. Coming out of the blue to supplant both Torreira and Xhaka as the defacto midfield stud.

Nowadays, they are a trifecta of midfield brilliance. The problem has been that there aren’t enough positions to go around. They’ve been stuffed into a midfield two, with the odd man out often being Guendouzi.

However, recently, in the 3-5-2 formation especially, they’ve been able to coexist as the perfect smattering of midfielding. And while Xhaka and Torreira are showing improvements throughout their regular starts, Guendouzi is doing the exact same.

It’s clear that Unai Emery is a big fan of Guendouzi’s, and it’s also clear that he is using any excuse he can to get Guendouzi out on the pitch. And frankly, I don’t see why anyone would be opposed to that, because Guendouzi is more than up to the task.

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The problem hasn’t been the physical part of the game with him, it’s been the mental part, making the right decisions, staying in the right position, that kind of thing. It’s still going to take some improvement, but in the meantime, he’s improving in other areas that are soon going to make him preferred over the likes of Aaron Ramsey, who apparently has no future at the club.

Guendouzi’s passing has really come a long way in the wake of Emery finding so many opportunities for him. He isn’t taking as many risks and when he does, they are intelligent risks without much potential for a downfall. We saw that against Burnley in particular.

Throughout the next couple of weeks, we are going to see more and more Guendouzi, because of injuries, rotation, all manner of things. Not even including the matches the he starts just because he deserves to start.

It’s hard to sit a guy who seemingly gets better every time he touches the pitch. And Emery clearly has no intention of doing so. Which is fine by me.

However we want to justify the need to get Guendouzi on the pitch is fine by me. Whether that be changing up the formation, or whatever. It just so happens that three of our best players all play the same position.