There are so many players Real Madrid fans are excited to watch under Jose Mourinho next season, but maybe the most exciting is young attacking midfielder Arda Guler, who is coming off his best campaign to date with nine assists and more chances created than anyone else in the Champions League.
Sure, Guler has some things to work on and still needs to get better at dribbling and defending in order to be a well rounded midfielder capable of starting every single week for Los Blancos, but he is making improvements there, too.
But his best improvement of the offseason - and he seems to get better and better every single summer - is perhaps his most important, and it will actually make his greatest strength, getting assists, that much more potent for Real Madrid.
Arda Guler is getting off the passes quicker
Madridistas have been harping on current stars like Vinicius Junior to get better at making decisions faster and playing that killer pass in the final third quicker so that the defense can't readjust and the assist opportunity does not go away.
Well, Arda Guler is already, at the tender age of 21, showing that stage of development for Real Madrid, as he has been making his decisions a whole lot quicker this preseason action, firing off his passes to Kylian Mbappe and the forwards with more urgency than he was in any of his previous campaigns at the Santiago Bernabeu.
That bodes extremely well for Real Madrid this season, especially as they look to be a more counterattacking team and play faster in transitions, just like they did more than a decade ago when Jose Mourinho first arrived at the Bernabeu and coached this team.
Guler has world class potential and is already getting pretty close to that level. After watching Bruno Fernandes pad his stats to 21 assists for Manchester United in the Premier League but achieve nothing, Guler knows the benchmark he needs to hit, except his goal is to actually achieve something important for Real Madrid. And after seeing how devastated he was in the Champions League quarterfinals when German giants Bayern Munich knocked them out this year, you can see how badly Guler wants to help his team win it all this season.
Getting the passes to Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, Yan Diomande, and anyone else who joins that elite attacking quartet quicker is of paramount importance, and that is a development from Guler Madridistas must watch closely.
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