Arsenal vs Watford: Matteo Guendouzi’s time to shine

Arsenal’s upcoming match against Watford has some potential red flags, but Matteo Guendouzi can put them all away by himself.

I was supremely confident going into Anfield, and I was supremely confident going up against Tottenham. And to be fair, while Arsenal struggled at times in both, the end result wasn’t as bad as you might have expected. They showed fight, determination, and a tenacity that we don’t see from them very often.

Watford… makes me nervous. Don’t worry, I still predict they’ll win, because I’ve never in my life predicted an Arsenal loss (I also don’t bet on sports), but the main issue here is the midfield.

If Granit Xhaka and Lucas Torreira are both out, our two strongest, grittiest midfielders are removed from the picture against a team that has arguably the strongest, grittiest midfield in the Premier League, coupled with already being a team that values the physical over the mental.

I’ve spoke a lot about Matteo Guendouzi this week, but I think it’s important to revisit again just how big of an impact he can make on this match and, in tandem, just how much he can sway the match in our favor and put a big ‘W’ (that’s for ‘Win’ not ‘Watford’) in the most important theater of play.

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With Etienne Capoue and Abdoulaye Doucouré, two midfielders with a lot of strength and a lot of athleticism, the Gunners midfield is going to be under siege. Granit Xhaka isn’t there to protect the ball. Torreira isn’t there to win the ball back.

And despite how promising Joe Willock is, I’m not going to count on him to change the tide of the match because I don’t think that’s fair to ask of him yet. I will, however, ask that of Matteo Guendouzi, since we literally have no one else to ask it of, unless you want to count on David Luiz to double as our midfield enforcer, which I’d rather not.

Guendouzi has just been prompted to add more ‘dynamism’ to his game by Didier Deschamps while on international duty and this is the ideal circumstance for him to do just that.

It’s a big ask for someone a 20-year-old in only his second year, and it’s not like we should be ultra critical if he can’t handle the heat, but it would be a massive lift if he could take another step forward in his career by being the premier man in this midfield.