23 year old Matteo Guendouzi joins Marseille from Arsenal in a deal worth €10m
Matteo Guendouzi had all the qualities you wanted in a modern midfielder. He is a versatile and attacking player which was touted to suit Arsenal tremendously. However, he became an issue in the changing room. This led to Mikel Arteta shipping him off on a loan spell to French club Marseille.
Arsenal sold Guendouzi to Marseille after agreeing on a loan with a buy clause inserted into the deal valued at less than £10 million. Guendouzi featured prominently in Arteta’s team during the opening months of his tenure. However, a combination of incidents with Arteta led to him being shipped off on a loan
In his final game for the Gunners, which came with Brighton, he had an altercation with Neal Maupay. Brighton wanted an apology for his actions but the apology never came. This, along with an incident in training camp led to the midfielder’s departure from the Emirates.
Arsenal under Arteta have had some ruthless offloadings
Arteta has moved on a lot of players who he has had issues with. Aubameyang had his name removed from the playing eleven following his ‘multiple disciplinary breaches’. Mesut Ozil was not even registered by the club in the final year of his contract. This led to the German’s departure from the club. Guendouzi is no exception.
The club offloaded several big players who were cluttering their wage bills. Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Sead Kolasinac are examples of this. Moreover, this is a clear indication of how desperate the club was to get them off the wage bill.
Mikel Arteta has been given given plenty of time to build a squad that is worthy of playing Champions League football. Building a squad means the manager has to make tough decisions. Arteta will hope the difficult decisions he has made will propel the club back to where it needs to be.
Follow us on Twitter
