Matteo Guendouzi celebrated his 23rd birthday on Thursday.
The combative midfielder is already an established member of the senior France international squad and is becoming “one of the best (midfielders) in the world” according to his boss at Marseille, Jorge Sampaoli.
So why on earth have Arsenal allowed him to depart so willingly and so cheaply?
The central midfielder is set to make his loan move to the French club permanent from the Gunners for a reported £9million fee.
Marseille’s president Pablo Longoria confirmed that the clauses for such a deal have already been met and the deal will be formalised when the transfer window opens. Guendouzi is set to sign a three-year contract with the Ligue 1 outfit that will keep him in the south of France until 2025.
It came after Marseille boss Sampaoli 's lofty praise above, with the Argentine adding that he was a “natural leader” in his side.
Having joined Arsenal as a teenager as a relative unknown talent from Lorient – then in France’s second division – his rise to prominence in North London was notable.
Across 18 months, he was a regular under Unai Emery and then Mikel Arteta – with his transfer valuation multiple times the £9m which the club would agree to receive not so long later.
Despite his youth, his leadership qualities and willingness to battle have been evident – with those skills manifesting themselves further in Ligue 1.
“Aside from his youth, Matteo has a particular energy,” Marseille boss Sampaoli explained. “He has a desire to win and he’s a natural leader. We imagined that would be the case but that it would happen over time. Seeing this in addition to his performances, we have an energy that everyone can envy.
"It is contagious and it’s a very important value in life. Experience is important for everyone but, for young people, sometimes difficult events are not good experiences. There is also personal capacity on the mental side. Guendouzi, for example, he is a 22-year-old but he acts like he is 30. The most important thing is maturity.”
Having received his first call up to the France international side earlier this season, the central midfielder has gone from strength to strength and made his France international debut earlier this season as he appeared for Les Bleus in a World Cup qualifier against Finland in November. The 23-year-old then revelled in fulfilling his “dream ” of scoring for the international side against South Africa in March.
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The midfielder, whose rise to prominence continues, said after that game: “It’s a source of immense pride, my first goal with the French team, you dream of moments like these. I will remember it for my whole life, that’s for sure. I’m really very happy, I hope to score many more.
"I’m proud because it rewards me for the work I’ve been putting in for a long time. I will remember it until the end of my life, this first goal with the French team, that’s for sure.”
Guendouzi is now a standout player in Ligue 1 and has made the breakthrough on the international stage in what is widely believed to be the strongest national squad.
He has clocked up over 200 senior club appearances and, aged just 23, has all the attributes to put him at the top of the shopping lists of Europe’s elite clubs. So how did it go wrong at Arsenal?
Having been at the centre of the Gunners’ midfield for a season-and-a-half, Guendouzi’s last game for the club was against Brighton in June 2020.
The Seagulls won that match late on in an ill-tempered affair, with Neal Maupay’s collision with Gunners goalkeeper Bernd Leno ruling the German out of the rest of the campaign. Tension were running high and at the end of the game, Guendouzi is alleged to have briefly grabbed Maupay by the throat but referee Martin Atkinson took no action and there was no subsequent punishment.
Guendouzi was also said to have been mocking the wages of Brighton players on the pitch. While these incidents were undoubtedly lacking in class and incredibly foolish, Guendouzi’s youth and relative lack of experience may have explained them away somewhat to allow a second chance. Not for Arsenal boss Arteta.
The coach has adapted a no-nonsense approach during his time at the club with multiple stars of the club appearing to be victims of a sharp fallout with Arteta, being ostracised and subsequently allowed to leave the club.
Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are the two most notable examples. Yet journalist David Ornstein has explained that the incidents at Brighton were not the first time that Arteta’s doubts on Guendouzi emerged.
“There was a training incident,” Ornstein previously revealed, referencing Arsenal’s mid-season trip to Dubai in February 2020.
“It was a mid-session altercation with one of his team-mates, which led to both men being pulled up by Arteta, although the 20-year-old was deemed the guiltier party and given a more stern dressing-down.
"But also during the five-day camp, Arsenal’s technical director Edu had to tell off the Frenchman for his behaviour at an external event. The group were enjoying some local music when Guendouzi briefly removed his shirt and waived it around in support of the act.”
Nevertheless, these appear to be somewhat minor infractions in the context of a young player’s future at the club being entirely torn up.
Former Gunners striker Jeremie Aliadiere, who worked as a coach at Lorient when Guendouzi played for the club, said: “Frankly, from the point of view of talent and purely football, if I’m just talking about that, there is no surprise.
"After, during my last season in Lorient, when he started to train with us and to play, I had a little question about his attitude. I said to myself: He’ll have to change a bit. He’s in Lorient, so it’s understandable, it’s a small family club, that’s it. But if he wants to climb the ladder and go play in a big club, his attitude will have to change. I think he understood that right away when he arrived (at Arsenal).”
Guendouzi is undoubtedly a combative player who plays on the line and is occasionally guilty of overstepping that mark.
Pal Dardai, the Hertha BSC boss during Guendouzi’s time at the club, has explained: “It’s like puberty for him, he’s kind of a rebel. He has to work and learn like an animal.
"In training, I always stop these kinds of duels (like the one where Guendouzi lost the ball, allowing RB Leipzig to score a second goal, by falling over to try and win a free-kick) because you can’t fall to the ground like this. And, afterwards, he’s mad.”
Yet the German club’s sporting director Arne Friedrich has been much more glowing in his memory of the midfielder’s short stint in Berlin: “He’s a fantastic player. He’s so calm. He wants every single ball, even under pressure. He has his own understanding that he wants to win games.
“[Guendouzi] has this intrinsic motivation to just show the world how good he is. This is what we need, this is what everybody needs and he is highly confident, which is also very important for our team because our team is still looking for structure. We are very, very happy to have him here and he’s worth every penny.”
Guendouzi had made 82 appearances for Arsenal in all competitions and had looked set to star for them over many years. But that trip to Brighton was his last outing for the club.
The midfielder, who joined Arsenal from Lorient in 2018, spent last season out on loan at Hertha Berlin, making 24 appearances and scoring two goals before injury cut his campaign short.
He subsequently joined Marseille on a season-long loan deal last summer which seems to become permanent this year.
It had always appeared unlikely that Guendouzi will return to Arsenal due to his apparent fallout with Arteta, who subsequently secured the signings of Thomas Partey and Albert Sambi Lokonga.
Yet many Gunners fans may continue to question the judgement of dispensing with the youngster’s services so readily with his exploits for club and country likely to only improve.
