Arsenal: Selling Matteo Guendouzi shows no logic or ambition

There are reports that Paris Saint-Germain are ready to pursue a summer move for Matteo Guendouzi. Any sale shows no logic or ambition from Arsenal.

The last few days have been flush with the rumours that Arsenal have upped Matteo Guendouzi’s transfer fee to around £60 million amid reports that Paris Saint-Germain are about to make a bid.

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It is unknown yet whether Arsenal would accept such a bid, but if the club did allow Guendouzi to move on, then it would just confirm that they are a selling club no longer interested in keeping their best players.

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Now, Guendouzi isn’t currently one of the best players at the club. He has had a solid but not perfect first few months in English football. But he possesses an enormous amount of potential. In two or three years, if he gets his head down and continues his upward trajectory, then Arsenal can certainly add another £30 million or so on top of the £60 million that’s currently being quoted.

The Gunners would clearly consider the bid from a monetary point of view, especially considering that it appears they will only have a reported £40/45 million to spend in the upcoming summer transfer window. Given that they only bought Guendouzi a year prior to a tenth of the reported asking price and do with raising their transfer kitty by selling some of their current players, there is a clear temptation to accept PSG’s advance, should it materialise.

However, Arsenal can probably raise around £60 million or so, as well as loosening the wage pressure substantially, by selling players like Shkodran Mustafi, David Ospina, Mohamed Elneny, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. In that context, the sale of Guendouzi doesn’t have any logic and shows a lack of thought process at the club.

Moreover, with the likelihood of Mesut Ozil departing in the summer too, which would generate a good £15-20 million and get £350,000-a-week wages off the books, there is no need to sell a potential star who is a Premier League starter at 19. What kind of message would it send the fans of the club if Guendouzi, who is a fan favourite, is allowed to depart, but consistent underperformer like Mkhitaryan, Mustafi and Elneny are kept at the club?

Also what kind of message would it send to the current group of players at the club who presumably have the ambition to win things. Will players like Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang also look to move on if they see the club is selling players like Guendouzi?

Unai Emery is trying to bring the wage bill down at the club by bringing in players who are on less money. But that does not mean that you should sell your talent at every opportunity, especially that which is young, improving and key to the future of the team. I would urge the board to show a little more ambition than that.