Arsenal: Joe Willock an emptier canvas than Matteo Guendouzi

Joe Willock just inked a new long-term Arsenal contract, which is terribly exciting. But we still need to see from him what Matteo Guendouzi needs to master too.

It’s always exciting when an Arsenal player signs a new contract, but doubly so when it’s a talented youngster like Joe Willcok, because it means so many things. It means that the club believe in him as a senior player. It means that Willock wants to stay. It means that Willock and the club agree on the best mutual way forward.

But it’s also a bit of an empty canvas, maybe with a few spatterings of a picture, but not enough to be a sure masterpiece. That’s where Joe Willock currently is in his Arsenal career. He is incredibly promising, incredibly talented, but the guarantee of a masterpiece isn’t there yet, just like it wasn’t there yet for Alex Iwobi.

I have loved seeing Willock feature so much in the first team, and I love how willing Unai Emery is to give him a chance, but for me, the one thing I haven’t yet seen from Willock is the one thing that Matteo Guendouzi hasn’t mastered yet either—dynamism.

Though I do believe that it’s Guendouzi that is closer on the dynamic scale, because we have seen those strokes of dynamism, like that pass against Tottenham, as well as him just having a bigger foundation to build off of.

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Willock is still a bit of a question mark for me, because I’m not completely seeing where he fits in the grand scheme. He doesn’t create a lot of chances, he doesn’t defend particularly well. So he’s essentially just a ball carrier, but as we’ve learned about our midfield, we need guys that can do a lot of things.

Guendouzi can defend, drive, dribble and pass. Granit Xhaka can pass, control and create. Dani Ceballos can create, dribble and carry. Lucas Torreira can defend and drive, though he needs to develop more as well.

But for Willock, the only thing we see for sure is that he can carry the ball. Useful, no doubt, but I’m excited to see what he fills in the rest of the canvas with. Will he be a creator? A defensive mind? It’s completely up to him.

And for his part, Emery sees an artist at work, and he’s willing to let him get the feel for his color palette.