Unai Emery has given a wide-ranging interview to SkySports and among the many topics covered was the improvement of certain players within the squad.
Now, Emery did not specifically point to only two players, he did clarify that there are a lot of players that have improved but it is significant that he highlighted Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira in particular.
‘I take a lot of satisfaction from players progressing individually and the improvement of their statistics,’ Emery said.
‘I think there are a lot of players who have made progress this season. There’s Matteo Guendouzi. ‘There’s Lucas Torreira. There’s also the statistics of the goalscorers together – Laca (Alexandre Lacazette) as much as Auba (Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang). ‘They are both scoring an important number of goals.’
I am not sure that Torreira has improved significantly, if, at all, you have to remember that he previously played for Sampdoria in Serie A and is an Uruguayan international that cost us £26 Million. I honestly feel that his performances for us this season are what we expect for a player of his calibre that did not come cheap and it can be argued that his game has tailed off a bit in recent weeks.
Guendouzi has improved, he came from the French Ligue 2 and has made a massive jump and shown that he can handle playing in the Premier League and European competition, he can be impetuous on occasions but he is only 20 years old and is still a work in progress.
I expect that both Torreira and Guendouzi will be a lot better next season having experienced their first season in the Premier League but for me, Torreira has done what was expected from him, no more, whereas Guendouzi has performed above expectations.