Javi Guerra’s best move options as Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle United enter £87m transfer battle

If you care to believe reports that are percolating down the footballing grapevine, no fewer than four Premier League teams have sent scouts over to Spain in recent week – all to take a look at Valencia’s 20-year-old midfielder Javier Guerra, Javi to his friends, who has had a pretty big impact since breaking into the first team towards the tail end of last season.

Arsenal, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United have all apparently been casting an eye over the tall, elegant central midfielder, and will likely have been impressed by what they’ve seen – Guerra already has three goals and assist to his name and looks incredibly comfortable playing at the highest level, and one bad recent game against Real Betis aside, he’s been in excellent form.

You may well have seen the stunning goal he scored in a 3-0 rout of Atlético Marid – using dancing feet to shift the ball away from two defenders and creating space for a shot, which came in the form of a seemingly effortless sand wedge-style dink into the top corner. That’s the highlight reel moment of his young career to date, but he offers an awful lot more than just the occasional flashy play, and has impressed at both ends of the field, as well as with his running, technique and movement.

Valencia have already issued a gentle hands-off warning, although the clubs in question could certainly make the Asturian outfit an offer they couldn’t refuse. His reported €100m (£87.2m) release clause probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously, at any rate. But which of the four clubs allegedly on the hunt for Guerra’s signature would suit the youngster best?

Newcastle United

Positionally, Guerra is a central midfielder who tends to start in deep-lying areas – and he’s been used as holding midfielder once or twice – but who also surges forward either with the ball at his feet or using late runs into dangerous area in and around the box. He looks like a natural fit for a team who play with a staggered three-man midfield, and that’s more or less what Newcastle do.

Guerra’s greatest asset is his excellence at both ends of the pitch, using his physicality and ability to read play to break up attacks before getting forward quickly to either spark attacks or join them at the other. That would line up brilliantly the way Eddie Howe likes his midfield to play, and there are definitely comparisons to be made in terms of play style to Sandro Tonali.

Judging by the finishing he’s displayed so far this season – apart from that gorgeous goal against Atléti, he’s finished coolly after untracked late runs into the box against Sevilla and Almería and has three goals against an xG of 1.21 – he’d also add a genuine goal threat from midfield, something that Newcastle could do with given that most of their regulars in the heart of the park aren’t big goalscorers. From a tactical perspective, he does look like a pretty natural fit for the Magpies.

Arsenal

Arsenal’s midfield set-up is a little different, with Kai Havertz and Martin Ødegaard pushing higher and wider up the field than Guerra is used to, but you could see ways in which the Gunners could benefit from a little more steel in the heart of midfield – and the Spanish Under-21 international is the kind of play-breaking midfielder who offers plenty going forward, too.

Still, he isn’t a natural fit for Arteta’s exact scheme, but it’s easy to imagine him understudying Declan Rice or being used as a more dynamic version of Jorginho in the matches in which Arteta wants a bit more brass in midfield.

The biggest gap between the types of player Arteta values and Guerra’s skillset, however, is passing. His pass completion (72% this season) is very low from a central midfielder and he attempts more mid- and long-range passes than he does short balls. He prefers to dribble with the ball (which he’s very good at) and try and get the ball forward quickly, which seems at odds with Arteta’s possession-based play.

Still, this is more a matter of style than aptitude – as his assist against Almería, a deftly-flicked pass down the left channel for Diego López, rather neatly demonstrated. Quick, short passes might not be his instinctive way of playing, but he seems perfectly capable.

Tottenham Hotspur

Typically, at Valencia, Guerra has played either as part of a 4-4-2 or as half of a double-pivot in a 4-2-3-1, which is essentially how Ange Postecoglou likes Spurs to line up. That said, he’s a different sort of player than the likes of Pape Matar Sarr and Yves Bissouma, so it isn’t clear whether he’d be a natural fit in Spurs’ side.

Sarr and Bissouma are both better at breaking up opposing plays – not that Guerra is bad at it, but he doesn’t boast the number of turnovers, tackles and interceptions that the very best holding midfielders do. Guerra is more of an all-rounder, and perhaps Postecoglou would prefer to stay with a more solid base, and not bring in someone who would also be looking to advance into the spaces so often effectively occupied by James Maddison.

Guerra looks like he would be a natural fit either for a double-pivot where one midfielder is naturally more advanced than the other, or as the second man in a staggered three-man midfielder. Anyone who signs him should want someone to play in the channels down the left, probably supporting a left-footed winger based on the way he’s played so far. That isn’t really Spurs as it stands, not that there’s any reason to believe that Guerra couldn’t adapt his game to adjust to a different scheme. He is only 20, it would be a little early for him to be stuck in his ways.

West Ham United

Like Spurs, West Ham play with a double-pivot, but theirs is more defensive still and offers even fewer opportunities to get forward. For Guerra to fit in to David Moyes’ system, he would need to change his style and even lean further into his defensive duties or become a more attacking player and try to operate as a number ten.

Perhaps either could work, but given that he isn’t remotely similar to either James Ward-Prowse or Tomáš Souček in terms of positioning, style of play or fundamental attributes – and nor has he demonstrated that he would be effective as a more out-and-out attacking player, even if there is some evidence from this season from his work around the box - it looks like Guerra would be a pretty awkward fit for the East Londoners, unless Moyes has it in mind to adjust the basic strategy going forward.

So if we were Guerra’s agent, we’d probably advise him to avoid West Ham – but given that he’s only 20 years of age, there’s no reason that he can’t adjust and adapt his game to fit any of these teams more cleanly. He has such a strong all-round game that it’s easy to envisage him adjusting to different roles or even different positions entirely – and it will be exciting to see where he goes next, and what he does with his career. Wherever he ends up, there’s every indication that he will become a cracking player.