‘Not looking good’ – Alarm bells for Arsenal with key star now a doubt for opening fixtures

Thomas Partey looks set to miss Arsenal’s opening Premier League match of the season after falling foul of injury against Chelsea in pre-season.

The Gunners lost 2-1 to the Blues in today’s opening Mind Series clash at the Emirates, but the real negative from today is the prospective injury to Partey.

The Ghanaian was no stranger to injury last term, missing a number of months with various injuries, and that cycle looks to have kicked in before the new season has even begun.

Partey’s foot got stuck under a challenge from Ruben Loftus-Cheek during today’s friendly matchup, and Football.London’s Chris Wheatley has confirmed that early reports state that the early signs are not good.

One medical professional has taken an educated guess to predict a 4-6 week absence for last summer’s marquee signing, but we will know more after further tests tomorrow morning.

Will Arsenal be forced to reassess our transfer plans if Partey is ruled out for 4-6 weeks, or would a longer expected absence force our hand? Could Xhaka now be forced to stay?

Patrick

Tags Chelsea Thomas Partey

28 Comments

  1. Please dont keep Xhaka and Berlerin. Give the chance even to Azeez, people dont get how Xhaka’s slow static nature affects our attack and his errors our general motivation. He can be a Euro champ but he doesnt do it for me_get Bissouma to help us dominate mids.

  2. MA has said Xhaka is staying, he’s a key member of the squad.

    As for Partey – bloody typical, sums our luck up! Xhaka/Lokonga against the Spuds then

  3. We urgently need creativity. So CAM/CM still a must.

    If Lautaro would somehow happen, I think he would also be thata creative spark as he so often plays SS (Bergkamp role).

    Wish we had a target man like Onuachu though. He’s not bullied by any defender at his 2.01m height.

  4. unfortunately this is going to be another long, rough season so just be prepared everyone, if that’s even possible 😢

  5. If this injury doesn’t give our amateur hour administrative wing the required impetus to do whatever it takes to bring in 1 or preferably 2 proper midfielders, like a Bissouma and/or an Aouar, but instead has them doubling-down on our underwhelming 3-wheeled Swiss shopping cart, Xhaka, then two things are a forgone conclusion, (1) Arteta has a much longer leash than most have predicted and (2) expect to witness a boatload of more depressingly scared and tactically naïve matches moving forward…this is an absolutely pivotal few weeks in our club’s history, in that if this experiment falls flat the unraveling and subsequent reinvention could take a significant number of years

    1. I concur TRVL, im really bothered about where we are going to end up after the dust has settled.

    2. If this is indicative of Arsenal in December, then Arteta should go. 18 months and he STILL cant improve buildup play? Hasn’t improved a shaky Leno in passing and decision making?

      Simply no excuse for this drab anti-football being forced on the players and fans.

      18 months is plenty of time to express some style of play; flair, verve, directness. Instead it’s more of the same crap with only Arteta surprised by the same result.

  6. So were’s the fans on here slagging me off because I want mikel out but after this afternoon game some fans or saying wot I said but nothing is said to them

    1. If I had a pound for every person who said “I told you so”…
      Tom, hundreds of people here have wanted MA out for months. I sincerely hope they don’t all come on and brag about it.
      I don’t think people have “slagged you off” just by disagreeing with your opinion.
      I happen to think it’s too early to write him off, after a pre-season friendly, but that doesn’t mean I will want to keep him if there is not considerable improvememt soon.

  7. Blessing in disguise, now we must sign more midfielders, apparently Auroar and Guimares will bloster our attack midfield can’t rely on El neny especially now that Xhaka is staying, we need ball carriers now

    1. Bruno Guimaraes of Lyon is a DM, like Yves Bissouma; however more versatile. Given Houssem Aouar the ACM is also at Lyon, Arsenal could approach with a package deal, if they got off their backsides.

      1. You’ll be lucky Oz – it’s a nightmare buying one player from Lyon, let alone two! They play a lot of games in transfers, and we all know how bad we are at that!

    2. Good comment Fortune. With Partey out for a month before the season starts and Elneny adding the ability to create goals for the opposition to his slow, negative portfolio.
      But we all know we will get one MF in at most.

  8. We need speed and stamina,

    See how long it took Elneny to catch up with havertz, Lokonga would do better, he’s untested by I believe he’s a star ⭐️,

    Arteta needs this options Bruno Guimaraes, ward-prowse or yves ,

    I really don’t see much in Madison, he’s too injury prone,

    We need steel, we can’t have a slow midfield and a slow defence,

    Mari was slow to recover.

    1. 100% agree with all of that Longbenark.
      Mind you – Elneny has had two assists already in pre-season. Unfortunately both for the opposition!

  9. Eleneny should not play again for us. he is a decent back up bit no more. He might be a nice guy and a good partner of arteta at the time he played but he wont progress. Makes mistake. Why arteta dod not play AMN in his place ? Why ? AMN never got a proper chance…. What does he see in elneny. He can keep him in the squad but come on when making your first XI

  10. If Thomas partey is out for a long period Bring in Bissouma ,Bruno Guimaraes , Koopmeiners or ward-prowse just one of them ,the transfer window is not yet closed…we can still do business sort out our problems even an attacking midfielder is need Madison or Aouar and a RB period🤔

      1. Finally! Nice to see someone root for AMN. Based on his performances in RB/LB positions, I’ve always believed that AMN has the necessary ingredients to play well in the middle of the park as a shield to our back four. Though he lacks the height, he can cover the ground without breaking a sweat and can last the full 90 minutes and some more. He has been pretty disciplined in his defensive duties too. But, unless something dramatic happens before this summer transfer window closes, i don’t fancy AMN to be included in the final squad.

        1. I agree with Oz’s comments about AMN. Immensely talented and perhaps because of that prone to be too casual and lose concentration. On his day he looks incredible but for me he doesnt have enough of those days. It’s a real pity because there’s a great footballer there with a lazy mindset.

          1. Of course he is not perfect… But my poiny is what about elneny ? Always concentrated ?! What about bellerin ?! Willian ?! As long as we have some underachievers, non homegrown players like that, i cant stand that we dont offer even a run to a guy like AMN. That os stubborness, very concerning stuboorness drom a rookie manager that does not seem to learn a lot

          2. Had Saka been played at LB for a couple of seasons without getting minutes consistently in his favoured wide forward position, he would have acted the same way as AMN does after being used as a utility player to cover for the injured full backs for almost two seasons. AMN is our recent version of Flamini, only Flamini finally had more opportunities in his favoured CDM role after his brief stints in other positions as a utility player.

      2. While AMN is an option with his speed and engine, he can lose concentration particularly in tracking runners. Joe Willock is another who could be given a run replacing Partey as “box to box” midfielder.

        1. Of course he is not perfect… But my poiny is what about elneny ? Always concentrated ?! What about bellerin ?! Willian ?! As long as we have some underachievers, non homegrown players like that, i cant stand that we dont offer even a run to a guy like AMN. That os stubborness, very concerning stuboorness drom a rookie manager that does not seem to learn a lot

  11. MA has to decide fast in terms of keeping AMN or bringing in Bissouma. But we still need a CAM, there is hardly any creativity in our team in the middle of the park.

  12. I’m curious why nobody has mentioned the bias and leniancy of the ref towards Chelsea. In what was supposed to be a friendly they kicked us off the park, and the ref did nothing. The real score was also 2-2 as we all saw against the CL champions. Tepid playing style and defensive performance were big concerns, especially first half, but we were not overrun so lets not overreact to this FRIENDLY.

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