Arsenal: The 3 young players who are ready to be starters

2. Matteo Guendouzi

Matteo Guendouzi’s second season at Arsenal has been a ‘down’ year. In reality, that is not true, but the narrative is such. His best performances came under the former manager at the start of the season. People tend to forget what happened more than six weeks ago, nevermind six months.

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But Guendouzi showed plenty in the first three months of the season. In fact, he thrust himself into the lead central midfield role as Unai Emery embraced his all-action style. And although the positional wandering that he sometimes allows to lead the way was present at times, his overall impact was an extremely positive one and helped illustrate his ceiling as the future anchor of the Arsenal midfield.

His performances this season have been among the best in central midfielder, especially from a distribution perspective. No player in the squad made more progressive passes per 90. Only Dani Ceballos and Granit Xhaka played more passes into the final third per 90. His 88.8% pass completion rate is bettered by only Sokratis, and is the best of all midfielders, while he completed 84.6% of his 15.7 long pass attempts per 90 minutes, which ranks behind only Lucas Torreira.

Guendouzi is already superior to Granit Xhaka and he has a far higher ceiling than the Swiss international. With Arteta’s detailed instruction, the Frenchman can be truly elite. He just needs time and opportunity, starting next season.