The Curious case of Matteo Guendouzi and the poor history of our youngsters. by Eddie Hoyte
We Kept massive error-prone Xhaka for four years, awarded a new contract to error maestro David Luiz, but planning on let our youngest brightest midfielder go because of attitude problem.
I mean not everyone can be royalty. You can’t really expect every young player to be perfect. Matteo has a lot ahead of him, he’s the only aggressive, bull headed player we have who doesn’t take shit, while also being the most gentlest player if he chooses to be, (As he showed by through his tears when Danny Welbeck got that horrific injury in the Europa league, and how much emotional he gets and hurts whenever a player of ours is badly injured on the field). He’s the only player who refuses to be bullied most of the times, a very passionate player who wears his heart by the badge.
The Brighton incident, the loss only made it worse for him and Leno’s injury. This is the one kid that shows pain and hurt whenever we lose games, one of the few who easily gets broken on the pitch. Yes, his hothead attitude is a cause for alarm, but I believe Arteta should be able to mould the boy? There’s massive potential there, why don’t you mould him to yours?
We really don’t know what’s with Arteta and Guendouzi, just like we have no idea what happened between Arteta and Martinelli that got him frozen out of the team pre-Covid era. I trust Arteta, but he needs to sort things with these kids, he needs to handle these issues well. He stopped Xhaka from leaving and is getting the best out of him isn’t he? Why’s Guendouzi any different?
We all knew this kid had greatness in him, sadly we live in a world where fans would turn their back on a promising kid because of his youthful exuberance, and yet accept crazy, error-prone, disastrous players for years. I don’t condone his attitude, but that hothead attitude can be channelled to fuel something better and massive!
I recall two years ago while we were singing his praises, I did mention how he’d definitely fail to improve if he keeps playing alongside our dross of a midfield. Place an eaglet in the midst of hens, and that eaglet will grow up behaving and believing it’s a hen. The boy regressed, instead of improving, he’s been stagnant. No leader of a midfielder to learn from.
Upfront there’s no one to write home about except PEA who delivers the numbers in goals. Behind him there’s no defender to write home about, no one to learn from.
Basically, we have a lot of good kids coming through, we’ve had a lot in the past. The pattern all these years, and it’s gotten worse. The pattern is a kid with lots of potential being pushed up and delivers promising performances in their first year, then slowly the potential we all saw dies off. We keep asking what happened and why? Perhaps these kids need better players to play with and mingle with?
There’s been a long stint of average performances from the club both on and off the pitch.
Surely this stems out from the players and leaders?
Where is the once promising Reiss Nelson that Wenger promoted?
Where is the Bellerin we all knew in his first year?
So much is being said about Ismael Bennacer for the past months, there are solid reasons to believe he’d be a poor struggling player if he was still at the club.
Guendouzi has gotten a lot more stubborn and rebellious now, but really let’s remind ourselves a lot of us constantly talked about how the weak attitude ofthe senior players would rub off on the young ones.
There’s been a pattern going on for years now killing our youngest and brightest potentials off.
Would Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and Billy Gilmour perform constantly good if they were at Arsenal?
Saka and Martinelli are both doing it now, and it wasn’t surprising when I saw the number of fans who insisted we needed to give these kids time before we sing their praises, or they needed to be judged in their second and third years.
I’ve been thinking and wondering if, three years from now, will Saka, Martinelli, Smith Rowe and Eddie move up top? Or rather end up as another set of washed-up potential talents that never fulfilled? Open your eyes guys, there’s a pattern going on with our kids. It’s been going on for years.
Now I know and I admit these kids are responsible for their own growth, but each and every kid needs a parent or guardian to help their growth, don’t they? Bar the few geniuses, the Messi and Ronaldos, the Mbappe and Sancho.
Ask yourselves, would it help if Guendouzi and the rest of the kids played alongside Modric, Xavi, the Michael Ballacks of the past, the Tomas Rosickys, the Santi Cazorlas in the past? Having very good and reliable senior players is what this football club really need. It doesn’t make us just compete alone, it spreads the hunger, the drive and the will to evolve to the kids.
We all knew what Cazorla made Coquelin be. We all knew how the likes of Wilshere and Ramsey were when we had Rosicky, Fabregas and others around.
Open your eyes, this club won’t only turn average if the board refuses to overturn and revamp the squad.
This club would produce failed youngsters, only a few will leave to go and be better. A lot will never fulfil their potential.
I started out writing this as a comment on Dan’s article in Guendouzi, I wanted to write about Guendouzi but here I am, letting myself put out every other disturbing facts about the kids in our football club.
The death of the greatness this football club had is killing off the growth of the academy. It’s been doing so for years, and like it or not, the inability to spend and bring in world class players is having an effect on our brightest kids.
It all starts from the board.
Eddie Hoyte