Arsenal manager Unai Emery highlights several areas where Matteo Guendouzi can improve
Unai Emery has praised Matteo Guendouzi but highlighted areas where the Arsenal midfielder can improve.
The Frenchman has made a fine start to 2019/20, with his performance against Tottenham before the international break a particular highlight.
Guendouzi appears to be one of the first names on Emery’s team sheet at present, but the Gunners boss believes the 20-year-old can get even better.
"Matteo is a very good example for how we can develop our young players, with new young players or the spirit within the players who are here now," Emery told Arsenal.com.
"He started last year, at the beginning, with some doubts about his adaptation after he came from Lorient in the second division in France.
“He was very young, but his ambition and his wish to adapt very quickly, as well as his quality, were very good for us. He started playing and training with us, and after, his progress and development during the season was amazing.
“But also, we were working with him on some details we needed to improve with him - his food, his body, how we can work to make it stronger, his arms, his body, his legs.
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“This year, I think he’s taken one step ahead, improving and also giving us one level more in his performances. We want to continue with him, working in each training session and in each match.
“For him and for us it’s a big challenge to take that step ahead. For other young players, his spirit, his progress, his development is a good example, for [Joe] Willock, for Emile Smith Rowe, for Reiss Nelson. It’s a very good example for everybody.”
Arsenal will travel to Vicarage Road to take on Quique Sanchez Flores’ Watford side on Sunday.
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Greg Lea is a freelance football journalist who's filled in wherever FourFourTwo needs him since 2014. He became a Crystal Palace fan after watching a 1-0 loss to Port Vale in 1998, and once got on the scoresheet in a primary school game against Wilfried Zaha's Whitehorse Manor (an own goal in an 8-0 defeat).