Matteo Guendouzi continued his impressive start to life at Arsenal with another preseason outing that was littered with upside.
Facing off against one of his former sides in PSG, where he spent the best part of a decade as a youth, the 19-year-old shone brightly from his central midfield station.
Full of composure, intelligence and technical quality, Guendouzi looked right at home vs. Thomas Tuchel's men, as he relished his latest opportunity to endear himself to manager Unai Emery.
Beginning with his positional sense, and he timed his lateral, vertical and diagonal movements nicely to generate numerical and positional superiorities, plus to make himself a viable passing outlet for his colleagues. Through implementing constant head scans of his blindside, this duly gave him a refreshed knowledge of where best to situate himself in relation to his adversaries, his comrades and the vacant space.
Indeed, the way the former Lorient hotshot's movements towards the ball holder helped support progression, in combination with how his movements away from the ball carrier drew his marker away from them to give his teammate extra time on the ball, was crucial too.
Showing a solid understanding with midfield partner, Mohamed Elneny, the pair cohesively worked together to help the team, as Guendouzi played the more progressive role and Elneny acted more defensively.
Once on possession, his decision making and execution was accomplished too. Never one to be fazed by pressure, the calm Frenchman did a fine job of orchestrating his team's passing moves out from the back, while also knowing precisely when to speed up the tempo through his creative distribution from deep.
His penetrative forward passing was also a key aspect, as this saw him break the lines of the Parisens' structure on countless occasions to destabilise their setup. Although he was a touch overambitious in his attempts to unlock the opposition at times, the way he impacted proceedings with his super range of passing would've delighted Emery to no end.
In addition, the way he strategically bursted into the final third from midfield via his dynamic runs and through his mazy dribbles, only added to his effectiveness.
Meanwhile, his proactive defensive output also offered plenty of positives, where he pressed aggressively, smartly cut off passing lanes, showed sound judgement when to hold his post and shifted with urgency in line with the defensive shape.
The fact he completed 50 of his 53 attempted passes, played three successful long balls, had two dribbles, chimed in with five interceptions and enjoyed three progressive runs aptly depicted his importance on both sides of the ball.
All things considered, although it's only days in his Gunners career, the enormously talented Guendouzi's certainly looking like he'll be a very smart piece of business indeed.
