Matteo Guendouzi has revealed that it’s his ‘dream’ and his ‘objective’ to play for the France senior side, despite his eligibility to play for Morocco.

Guendouzi recently got his first call-up to the France under-21 team, putting the pressure on Morocco to try and convince him to change his mind before playing for the senior team.

As a result, there have been plenty of rumours in recent months about the Morocco manager flying to London to speak to him, or the Moroccan Federation contacting Guendouzi’s father. The 19-year-old qualifies for Morocco through his father, but Matteo says his dream is to play for France, having done so for the youth teams for a while now.

“I have always played with young French teams,” Guendouzi said to RMC. “The France A team is an objective, a dream. I know I have the capacity to go there one day. It will be up to me to continue working, not to lose my head.

“There are very big players in the middle of the field, international stars. I will continue to work and if one day I have to be there, I will be there. In any case, I strongly believe in it.”

Guendouzi has become a regular feature of Unai Emery’s Arsenal teams almost every week this season, since signing in the summer. In 28 matches in all competitions, Guendouzi has appeared in 24, making 18 starts. He’s also played the full 90 minutes in the last five Premier League matches.

Nonetheless, there’s still room for improvement. Arsenal only have a couple of wins in that recent run of five games, after picking up all three points in nine of the previous 12 league matches. At just 19 years old, there’s already a lot of pressure on the Frenchman to help the team to get results. Hopefully, he can thrive under that expectation.