Charles Watts has slammed Arsenal’s sale of Matteo Guendouzi for a minimal £10 Million after Marseille took up their option to sign him.
The midfielder had a falling out with manager Mikel Arteta on more than one occasion, with the final issue resulting in the Frenchman being forced to train alone. He was then allowed to leave to join Schalke on loan for last term before being sent to Marseille on loan with an option to buy last summer.
The 22 year-old has since earned a recall to the senior France team whilst impressing back in Ligue 1, and his move has since been made permanent.
Charles Watts has slammed the figures involved in the deal however, claiming that the French side will pay a total fee of £10 Million to land the former Lorient youngster.
“At the time I reported it, Arsenal got a loan fee of around £1m initially, and they’ll get another about £9m when the move turns permanent,” Watts told his YouTube followers.
“Is that enough money for Guendouzi, who has now turned himself into a fully-fledged French international since his time at Marseille? Probably not. Well, in fact, it’s not. No doubt about it.
He then had a jibed at our recent decision to allow Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang also, stating: “At least they’re actually getting some money and not paying a player to leave, which is good.”
This certainly wasn’t our finest piece of business, but in reality, how much can you really demand for a player that isn’t wanted at the club by the manager?
Patrick
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Charles Watts is a dud ..
I concur with you SueP about loaned players.
The low fee might have to do with Guendouzi’s attitude problems, not only with us but also at Hertha Berlin, not Schalke 04, last season.
I think Arsenal will get % from future sales. There’s a clause for that, not sure on the exact number but its there
My view and opinion is that selling Guendouzi at the
time was a brilliant and beneficial move to Arsenal
His attitude wasn’t/isn’t what the club needed/need
He brought disunity and disharmony in the dressing
room despite him being the youngest player
Besides all the other confrontational scenes that are often talked about, he was also in the habit of
shouting at senior players even for mistakes that he would have caused. For me the cost of keeping him at Arsenal outweighed the cost of selling him
at 10m. Good move and good riddance to miscreant
Can you explain then after throwing these slurs, why he has been made Captain of the French under 21 because of his attitude, Captained his latest team, his manager has said he is a future captain of the club, an excellent attitude and given his full French national team cap, all since he joined Marseille, this season. Where did you get that he was a main disruptive influence in the dressing room from?
Oh and why is selling someone who has been valued as high as 50 mil by transfer market and at the start of this season 28 mil, brilliant business?
@Reggie
You’re wasting your bandwidth trying to reason with one of the “cancel culture sheep”.
Matteo has been branded as a “bad apple” by many on here, with admin leading the charge…
It doesn’t matter what he does now, it’s what he did then. The fact that in the nearly 2 years since he went, MG has matured, then thank heavens that he has. I’m assuming it’s true about not apologising to Arteta, so Guendouzi has had time enough to get his head straight and pursue his career elsewhere.
I’m not saying he was a rotten apple but all this was going on at a time when Arteta was beginning his purge of players who dissented. MG took a different route to the Sakas and Smith Rowes of this world who kept their heads down. What I see now at Arsenal is a growing team spirit and that team spirit is propelling the team upwards.
Its called Management Sue P.
Loans fall into two categories for me
1. To improve an up and coming player for re integration
2. To get shot of someone so that another club picks up the wages and hopefully it’s bye bye time at the end and they are bought
In my case, once I picked up on MG refusing to apologise to his manager and Edu then his days were numbered. Being a silly arse on the pitch is one thing, but not accepting the authority of the boss is another. The dressing room got Emery the sack so MG wasn’t making life easy for himself under the Arteta regime. The same fate saw others shipped out and they aren’t exactly missed – well not by me.
I don’t care what they do at a club when they leave us. I’m not worrying about Auba’s goals at Barcelona as I prefer looking forward to the remainder of the season at home and our match against Watford next
It does, however, appear that Guendouzi’s fee is on the low side but I don’t know what the expectations regarding footballer values were when he went to Marseilles, due to the crisis in football finances at that point in the Covid journey.
It does look like poor asset management but at the same time I’m glad to see the back of him. Never fancied him much as a player.
Still, would be great to hear that we have a healthy sell-on percentage on his next move but that is probably too much to hope for.
The paltry sum for Mavroponas seems even worse.
YES it is likely that had we kept Guendouzi andput up with his antics and thre huge damage that ir would have hadon our present magnificne dressing room harmony and will to win which is by adistance thebest we have had for many years past,IN THAT DAMAGING SITUATION, we wpould have probably got more than £10mill for the brat.
Right from the start, I and other wise and mature fans who knew from our life experience that trouble makers in a dressing room are poisonous and harmful to any club, let alone team, backed our worldly wise manager foir getting this unholy brat gime fromout club NO MONEY ON EARTH is worth the damage that this unpleasant child wa doing to our club togetherness.
As in this special will to win dressing room that MA has created by instilling and insisting on discipline with NO EXCEPTIONS, HAS DONE SO THRILLINGLY.