Jeremie Aliadiere: Guendouzi ego may have prompted Gunners exit

Guendouzi had belief from the start

I was in the final year of my playing career at Lorient when Matteo Guendouzi came through the ranks and made it into the first team. You could see he had a bit of an ego, he really believed in himself, and I think that’s a good trait to have – especially at that age when you’re coming into a group of senior players. If you don’t have it then you’re just going to find the step up really difficult. I didn’t think much of it, I just put it down to the fact he was young and assumed he’d learn.

I know he had problems the following season with the manager, Mickael Landreau. He had a big bust-up with him around his attitude, and then he came to Arsenal. I just thought that move would mature him – coming to a big club and joining up with some of the names Arsenal had at the time; I thought he’d be able to direct his passion and willingness to win and all of those positive traits in the right place.

He still had the attitude issues I saw at Lorient, and it may have just been down to his personality and the way he’s just so desperate to win all the time. But personalities like that tend to clash on the training ground, and I think that’s maybe what happened to him in the end at Arsenal. Mikel Arteta came in at a time where he needed to have total authority over the group. He needed a squad full of players who were willing to work hard and who were committed to the project and not showing issues with their attitude.

It’s sad because I feel like Matteo has got all the talent in the world, and he’s proving it now at Marseille. I just think he could’ve given so much more for many, many years at Arsenal. He’s got the talent, the personality and the hunger for it, and he grew up supporting Arsenal, so I know that move was a bit of a dream come true for him.

I’m happy to see him doing well at Marseille; he’s one of the main guys there and he’s playing for the French national team so obviously he’s doing something right, which is great to see. Sometimes it just comes down to timing, and he was at Arsenal during a time of reconstruction; Arteta couldn’t afford to give Matteo the time and chance to turn things around. The boss has no time for it, and we’ve seen that on several occasions over the last few seasons.

Things have changed a lot at Arsenal from when Matteo joined to where the club are today. Sometimes it’s a little bit too easy to just blame the player’s attitude when explaining why things haven’t quite worked out.

Sometimes it’s simply a matter of timing and, like I said, he was brought in at a very important transitional phase for Arsenal, and was a player Mikel Arteta inherited when the club were under a lot of pressure to deliver performances, and his personality at that moment in time perhaps wasn’t right for the manager. But it’s a different team now and you do wonder how things might have been if he was still an Arsenal player today.

He’s still a young kid, though, and he has made mistakes. I’ve been there myself. He maybe came with a bit too big of an ego, and sometimes when you’re a senior player and a youngster comes in like that, it doesn’t really sit right. You’re wondering who this guy thinks he is. I saw it with him at Lorient, granted at a different level because of the size of the club compared to Arsenal.

But that’s just the kind of person he is, and it’s what’s made him the player he is today. He’s still so young, as well and he’s got so many of his best years still ahead of him. He’s already played so many games for Arsenal and Marseille as well as the French team now, so this is only going to help him in his development in the next few years.