UNAI EMERY has told his Aston Villa transfer team to land Marseille’s France international midfielder Matteo Guendouzi.
Emery signed the 23-year-old for Arsenal for a bargain £7million from Lorient in 2018 while he was in charge of the Emirates club.
Matteo Guendouzi is being lined up for a reunion with former boss Unai Emery at Aston VillaGetty
Now reports in France say the Villa boss has already spoken to his former player who is valued at £27million and is keen to reunite with the Spaniard at Villa Park.
Guendouzi made 48 appearances for Emery in his debut season at Arsenal but fell out of favour under Mikel Arteta and was sent out on loan to Hertha Berlin, then Marseille.
Arteta was left unimpressed when Guendouzi grabbed Neil Maupay’s throat in June 2020 and allegedly taunted Brighton’s players about their salaries.
Guendouzi would later say about Arteta: “It’s true that I didn’t have the best relationship with him.
“Beyond that, I always tried to work, always gave the maximum of myself in training and in matches.
“I still play a few matches with him, I still did great performances.
“He preferred other players and I respect that decision.
“That’s why, afterwards, I also decided to leave because I was still young, I needed playing time to continue to progress.
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“The most important when you’re young is to play.”
Ligue 1 giants Marseille made the loan deal permanent last summer when they landed the out-of-favour Gunner for £9million.
Now they could be ready to treble their investment by allowing Guendouzi return to the Premier League and have targeted Angers’ Moroccan midfielder Azzedine Ounahi as a potential replacement.
It is not the first time Emery has tried to team up with Guendouzi again after failing in a bid to sign him for Villarreal two seasons ago.
However he is determined to succeed this time and pair him up with his former Marseille teammate Boubacar Kamara to add more steel to Villa’s midfield.
Villa hope to offset some of the cost of the deal by offloading former Marseille midfielder Morgan Sanson and Zimbabwean midfielder Marvelous Nakamba.