Unai Emery and Henrikh Mkhitaryan praise Arsenal newcomer Matteo Guendouzi

Arsenal summer signing Matteo Guendouzi has been praised by his manager Unai Emery and teammate Henrikh Mkhitaryan following an unexpected strong start to life with the Gunners. The teenager was signed from Lorient and started all three of Arsenal’s Premier League matches this season including Saturday’s 3-1 victory over West Ham. Unai Emery has been amazed how quickly Guendouzi got adopted to the life at Arsenal. ‘It is a very big, positive surprise with him,’ said Emery of Guendouzi, who was subbed off for fellow summer recruit Lucas Torreira in the second half against West Ham. ‘He is improving. He is playing and working every day. He is hungry – he wants to improve, he wants to learn every day, every match. ‘He is doing it his way, with character and quality. We are very happy with him but every match is a chance to show this progress with consistency.’ Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who is hugely impressed with the 19-year-old, has admitted that he did not even know who the youngster was before he joined. The Armenian told RMC Sport: ‘To be honest, I had never seen this guy, I had heard about him but had never seen him play, so I was very impressed from the first training session. ‘I thought he has a lot of quality and he will bring good things to the club. If the coach took the decision to play him in the first match I agreed because he deserves it, we tried to help him. ‘He played very well the first two matches and we hope he will keep on giving positive performances.’

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