"He was born like this, and he has had this bravery throughout his upbringing."
Wednesday 29 August 2018 14:30, UK
As a new era is ushered in at the Emirates, it is a signing who arrived to precious little fanfare who has caught the eye for Unai Emery's Arsenal, writes Ron Walker...
Lucas Torreira was expected to grab the headlines after joining Arsenal in the summer, but 19-year-old midfielder Matteo Guendouzi has found himself at the centre of attention.
With just eight top-flight appearances to his name, Guendouzi raised few eyebrows when he joined from Ligue 2 mid-table club Lorient for £7m in July. But after a starring role in Arsenal's 5-1 win over PSG in pre-season, there were murmurs around north London suggesting he could make an immediate impact.
Keeping Torreira, a player who featured in all five of Uruguay's World Cup games, out of the Arsenal's midfield for the first game of the Premier League season against Manchester City was beyond expectations. And so was Guendouzi's performance.
"I had never seen this guy, I had heard about him but had never seen him play, so I was very impressed from the first training session," team-mate Henrikh Mkhitaryan told RMC Sport. "It is a very big, positive surprise with him," echoed head coach Unai Emery.
However, Guendouzi's bright start was not a fluke. He may have been plucked from relative obscurity but it was the philosophy of the Lorient academy that helped mould his bold traits, which have helped him stand out throughout his upbringing and avoid becoming overawed in his early weeks with Arsenal.
Released by Paris Saint-Germain at the age of 14, he was a key part of the Lorient Under-17 side who were French champions in 2015, and he played in the French youth cup quarter-final defeat to Auxerre as part of their Under-19s two years later.
As happens at every club, others around him faltered while Guendouzi rose through the ranks. Perhaps, the difference was the youngster's determination and single-mindedness - which would later cause as many problems as it solved.
"Lorient have a reputation of playing in a certain style," Arnaud Huchet, a sports journalist covering Lorient for French outlet Oust-France, told Sky Sports. "Christian Gourcuff [father of ex-Milan midfielder Yoann] was manager of Lorient over two long spells, and was a real football teacher. He is very well-respected in France.
"He developed that style for Lorient, so they had a way of teaching their young players - but Guendouzi has to take most of the credit. He was born like this, and he has had this bravery throughout his upbringing.
"He showed the same strength and quality which he is now showing at Arsenal very early on, which meant he was very confident on the ball, very easy, had good vision and technical ability. He's had all that since the beginning."
Such personality and ability helped Guendouzi impress at every level he has played in, and it was after a handful of appearances for the B team in the fourth tier that head coach Sylvain Ripoll decided he was ready for a step up to the first-team squad at the start of 2016/17.
"He had developed a good reputation with the youth team and it was a natural progression for him," Huchet added. "He has a look, like David Luiz, so in France the first time he went on national television there were some comments passed about that, so he was already getting noticed before people looked at his talent."
When Ripoll was sacked after two months of the new season, replacement Bernard Casoni, a more defensively-inclined coach, was less impressed with his open style, which he of course would not agree to change. Only when Casoni was sacked and Mickael Landreau took over following relegation in the summer of 2017 did things improve for the midfielder.
By last Christmas, Manchester City and Tottenham were keeping an eye on Guendouzi's progress, but back across the Channel they had little to go on as he had been frozen out of the Lorient squad. Tempers had frayed after he refused to sign a new deal with the club, and a bust-up with Landreau did little to help.
In the midst of those frictions, president Loic Fery looked to build some tentative bridges with the club's most exciting prospect, saying: "He is very talented and I cannot hide that I really appreciate him. I became particularly involved with his development at the time of his first professional contract more recently in the extension process.
"But beyond personal affinities, I make my decisions on sports choices which involve integration into the group on the field."
Guendouzi eventually returned to the team but hope of a reconciliation was too little, too late. Fans had been praying for a resolution, with results dipping alarmingly without him in the side, and the disagreements would eventually cost the club as they missed out on the play-offs.
Lorient's rising star was sold for £7m during the close season, a significant amount for any player in Ligue 2. If there were a happy ending for both parties, this was it. But will he ever be considered as indispensable for Arsenal as he was for his old club?
"He has the footballing ability to go very high," says Huchet. "But in terms of his physical strength, if there was a big, imposing physical midfielder at Arsenal like Patrick Vieira he would very much struggle to get in the team ahead of them at the moment.
"It's a little bit early to say whether he will have a fantastic career, and whether he has the mental strength. But he's young, and very confident on the ball and has good technical ability and vision, and he's shown that since the beginning."
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