New Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho is here to overhaul how the club plays and transform them back into winners after two seasons without a trophy and more headlines regarding locker room strife than success on the pitch.
A player Mourinho is already highlighting as a huge key to success is Arda Guler, with the Turkish playmaker already being compared to a Mesut Ozil regen for Madrid in the Mourinho counterattacking system. Mou plans to use Guler more in transitions as a playmaker bridging defense to attack, which also implies a potentially deeper midfield role in some games.
Here are three Real Madrid players who benefit the most from Guler being more central to the project or even playing a big deeper.
DM Aurelien Tchouameni
Bernardo Silva definitely could benefit as a left sided defensive midfielder in a double pivot where he can be the defensive No. 8 and Arda Guler a deep inverted playmaker, like Toni Kroos, but Aurelien Tchouameni probably has a lot more to give than Silva at this stage of their careers.
The big knock on Tchouameni has always been that he can't create enough from deep, so sharing defensive midfield roles with Guler to his right could help Tchou shine more for what he does bring to the table, allowing Guler to focus on making the plays for the front line.
ST Kylian Mbappe
Speaking of which, Kylian Mbappe has already benefited greatly from Guler, who absolutely adores the French No. 9 and does whatever he can to feed the center forward every chance he gets. Most of Guler's nine assists were to Mbappe, so if Guler is going to get even more chances to assist, especially when Mbappe is unleashed on the counter, then no player stands to benefit more than the former PSG man.
LW Vinicius Junior
Yan Diomande has an argument on this list, but between the two of them, the inverted left winger Vinicius Junior is the bigger goal scoring threat. Vinicius will be after 20 La Liga goal this season and an arms race with Kylian Mbappe, and Guler can help him get there. Guler honestly needs to look at Vinicius for those deep through passes more, too, because Toni Kroos made a killing off those kinds of plays in quick transitions - just ask clubs like Liverpool and Bayern Munich in the Champions League knockouts. Real Madrid need to make more use of Vini's explosiveness on the break, and that will be a key for both Mourinho and Guler in 2026/27.
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