Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was unable to confirm whether Thomas Partey is available for Monday’s clash with Crystal Palace.
The Gunners turned their early losing run around to remain unbeaten in our last four matches, picking up 10 points from a possible 12 since the start of September, and will be keen to continue on that upwards curve.
That could become difficult if we cannot call upon Partey however, who has been proving his worth to the team in central midfield, with Granit Xhaka already ruled out with injury.
Albert Sambi Lokonga, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Mo Elneny could all be in contention to start, either alongside Thomas or in his place, but you would imagine that we would be weaker without the Ghanaian.
Arteta was unable to confirm if the 28 year-old would be in the squad against Palace. The Spaniard was asked about his availability during his pre-match conference(via Arsenal.com): “Well, let’s see. We haven’t had the players here yet. Some of them because they’re still travelling and they’ve not been assessed by the medical staff, but hopefully. He finished both games really well. He played well and scored a couple of goals like many other players did in this international break, and hopefully, everybody is in the right condition on Monday to help us win the game.”
Partey scored in both of his fixtures for his country during the break, but is yet to score a single competitive goal for our side since joining in the summer of 2020 from Atletico Madrid.
Who would be your favoured pairing at CM in the absence of both Thomas and Granit?
Patrick
If he is to be unavailable then there isnt many options there so it would have to be AMN and ASL
further along are options with moving White in Midfield, Tomi at CB and Nuno at RB as he can play both sides, but this option brings more disruption with all 3 players playing outside of their usual position at the club
Nothing in Artetas statement says anything about him not playing against Palace.
It says, and meaningfully,” he finished BOTH games really well”!
HARDLY THE SORT OF COMMENT THAT AN HONEST AND NON AGENDA RIVEN MAN WOULD CONSIDER MAKES HIM DOUBTFUL, I SUGGEST, MR. AGENDA RIVEN PATRICK!
MA was clearly speaking in COLLECTIVE terms only and about ALL the squad who travelled to international games.
The dishonesty of so many of these articles, esp from you, makes me furious, because I like truth and loathe false representations.
Kind of highlights how fragile we are right now. Agree with Val that AMN and Sambi would be our best pairing, but can’t see us being very effective against palace without him