Mikel Arteta has hailed his new signing Thomas Partey as a ‘big piece’ to the puzzle, as he tried to build Arsenal into title challengers once more.
Our club hasn’t won the Premier League title in over 15 years, with our last win coming in the famous Invincibles season of 2004.
The saddest part of that time is that we have struggled to even come close to winning the title in the majority of the seasons since, with the club previously blaming the stadium as reasoning for a lack of spending, but the club as a whole now appears ready to fight their way back into contention.
The feeling in North London is very much positive at present, although nobody is demanding that this current squad is going to overhaul all of our rivals and win the league this term, the feeling is that it wouldn’t be a huge shock if we was close however.
Thomas Partey has been likened to Patrick Vieira in some circles, and his performance in his full debut last night has not gone unnoticed. The midfielder has come in for praise, and his manager was amongst those heavily impressed.
“He looked really solid and really comfortable,” Arteta said after the game (via Football.London).
“I think he held the midfield by himself in the second half when we were a little more open and started to take more chances and attacking certain spaces with some players. But I think he was fantastic tonight and there is much more to come from him.
“But he needs his team-mates around him. It’s not about him. We know that with the price that we paid for him and the profile of the player that he is, that he’s going to have a lot of people looking at him every single game.
“But this is about the structure we have as a team and the flow, the unity and the cohesion that we need in our team and he is one piece of that and hopefully he’s a big piece.”
With Partey added to our FA Cup winning squad, and with Gabriel Magalhaes proving to have been an important signing, are we closer to the Premier League title than we have been in a decade and a half?
Patrick
Partey comprehensive attributes will add a lot to our team.Will be the main factor to shift for more attacking system.
Hopefully with Gabriel’s performances at CB and the addition of Partey, we can get back to more attacking football. Partey brings much needed balance to our midfield, and honestly I would love to see how a midfield trio ElNeny sitting back as a DB and Partey and Ceballos getting more forward works for us.
Nothing against Xhaka, but Ceballos has better technique and pace, Partey is a complete B2B, and ElNeny is better defensively and does the simple things to help us tick with consistency.
I have been impressed with ElNeny since his reintroduction, and feel that he really has something to offer in the midfield.
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Partey will soon stress as a central midfielder if we do not get a 10 in time. You better start trying SAKA , Smith Rowe & Willock for the 10 position. They will get used to Xhaka.
Partey and Elneny and receive Central
Midfield induction from those more experienced there
So far, Partey and Gabriel top notch buys.
Decent: Ceballos
Jury out: Runarsson