Last weekend was not a good one for Arsenal, with a terrible 3-0 defeat to Crystal Palace and Kieran Tierney being ruled out ahead of the game. The Scotsman has since had an operation on his knee and will not be playing again this season.
Then it got worse when Thomas Partey pulled up with yet another thigh injury as well, and after tests, Mikel Arteta is now worried that the Ghanaian will also miss the rest of the season. “It’s a little bit ambiguous but he has a significant injury and we’ll have to keep assessing him,” Arteta told the Guardian. “He will be out for some weeks. It could be [that he can play again this season] but it could not be the case, because it’s an area where he had a previous injury as well and he felt it straightaway. He’s not fit.”
Thomas has not been having the best of luck with injuries since joining Arsenal, and it is extremely worrying that he keeps getting recurring problems, just like Tierney in fact, and to lose both of them right now with many crucial fixtures ahead of us could be a real setback in our hopes of securing Champions League football next season.
It doesn’t help that not many Arsenal fans have faith in Nuno Tavares and Albert Sambi Lokonga, who are likely to be the replacements for Tierney and Partey against Brighton. Surely we should be able to cope with the out-of-form Seagulls, but we have much harder tests coming up in the weeks ahead…