Throughout his tenure at Arsenal, Matteo Guendouzi has maintained that he has no regrets. Arriving from Lorient in the summer of 2018, the Frenchman made an impression on the team under Unai Emery’s leadership. However, after a respectable beginning, the two would later clash when Mikel Arteta took over as manager in 2019.
Guendouzi was eventually shut out of the game and excluded from most match day squads after Project Restart, which took place after football returned from COVID-19 in 2020.
After spending a season on loan at Hertha Berlin, Guendouzi managed to leave for Marseille the next season. The Frenchman has stated that there isn’t much he would alter, despite having a difficult time leaving Arsenal. “My actions at Arsenal are not regrettable,” he stated to the Athletic. In two years, I played 85 games after becoming 19 years old. It’s a lot of games—85 for a major team like Arsenal. I did my utmost to support the club. We placed fifth in my first season, one point out of the Champions League spots, and we were eliminated in the Europa League final. It’s equivalent to finishing second or third in other leagues when you place fifth in England. Even with the bottom teams, England’s league is very competitive; in fact, because every game is so damn hard, it may be the largest in the world. I am rather pleased with the work I did there.
“We won the FA Cup in the following season. I played a lot when I was younger and was really content with this. Great players taught me a lot. Mesut Ozil was the greatest and most talented player when it came to seeing things with the ball; he sees things you never would. “I had the good fortune to work with Unai Emery, who was a fantastic manager. He’s now performing admirably for Aston Villa. I was incredibly fortunate to work with him because he gave me the courage to play. In contrast to the first year, I didn’t play as much over the final six months of my second season, so it wasn’t ideal.
An incident during a mid-season training camp in the Middle East sparked Guendouzi and Arteta’s disagreement, which reached a boiling point during Arsenal’s 2-1 loss to Brighton in June 2020.
Guendouzi and Neal Maupay got into a confrontation after the Seagulls’ late victory, with Guendouzi snagging the Brighton striker by the throat. The midfielder doesn’t seem to be very sorry for what he did, even though this will be his final game wearing an Arsenal shirt.
“A lot of things can happen on the field, and sometimes players say things you don’t accept, which is why we had some issues during this game against Brighton,” he stated. “But I’m just focused on the future; that’s in the past.
Even with their tense relationship, Guendouzi is willing to commend Arteta for his work at Arsenal and says he only wants the best for the team. The now-Lazio midfielder remarked, “I didn’t work with Arteta very much; I only had six months. “As I was just 19, I was constantly learning. I would not repeat my blunders from my teenage years. On the other hand, mistakes are a part of football, and you learn new things every day. Errors happen in life. Making errors helps you grow as a person and as a football player. Since I played there a lot, I thought it was an excellent club.
“Arteta’s performance at Arsenal is outstanding; the team is strong and in the running for the title, and he’s producing incredible work. Given the size of Arsenal, I’m hoping they’ll take home a trophy. All the best to them, I hope.