Matteo Guendouzi has revealed that he is forever grateful to former Arsenal boss Unai Emery for the faith that he afforded him during the pair’s short-lived time together in North London.
Arsenal signed the young French midfielder in the summer of 2018, some months after hiring Emery as Arsene Wenger’s replacement.
Guendouzi cost the Gunners a mere £8 million and a brilliant 2018-19 campaign at the Emirates Stadium suggested that they had pulled off quite a coup.
Emery was fired within months of the following season and the 21-year-old found it more difficult to play every week once Mikel Arteta came in, with the Spaniard ultimately exiling Guendouzi during Project Restart due to attitude problems, before loaning him to Hertha Berlin last summer.
He has been a big hit in the Bundesliga and it’ll be fascinating to see what Arteta’s plan is this summer once Guendouzi returns.
But the former Lorient starlet clearly holds Arteta’s predecessor – now at Villarreal – in the highest possible esteem and here’s what he told France Football about Emery.
He said: “He improved me a lot, he thought about me very early on. I have always given everything for him. It worked really well between us. I produced truly great matches with him. I will be thanking him for the rest of my life.”
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