Fabrizio Romano has confirmed that Thomas Partey will leave Arsenal this summer after failing to reach an agreement over a contract extension with the club.
Partey had a strong finish to last season, managing to stay fit and putting in consistently impressive performances in midfield. His contributions helped Arsenal maintain their challenge at the top of the Premier League table and convinced many fans, as well as Mikel Arteta, that he still had much to offer.
Arsenal wanted to keep him for another season
Due to his improved form, Arsenal made the decision to offer him a new contract for another year. Arteta was one of the main voices advocating for Partey’s renewal and expressed a clear desire to keep working with the Ghanaian midfielder. The club initiated talks with the player’s representatives and hoped for a swift resolution.
However, after several weeks of discussions, it became clear that the two sides could not come to terms. According to Romano’s report via X, Arsenal and Partey have now ended contract talks, and he will leave the club once his current deal expires.
Partey’s departure opens the door for new signings
Partey’s exit means Arsenal will lose a player who, when fully fit, brought control and experience to their midfield. Yet the club is not willing to compromise on its contract policies or wage structure. This measured approach reflects Arsenal’s long-term strategy of maintaining financial discipline while building a squad that can compete at the highest level.
While losing a player of Partey’s quality is never ideal, Arsenal believes they have options and will move decisively to strengthen the position. With names like Martin Zubimendi and Douglas Luiz linked, the Gunners are already planning their midfield rebuild.
Partey’s time at Arsenal has had ups and downs, but his final season reminded everyone of the quality he can bring. His departure will be felt, but Arsenal will aim to find the right profile to replace him without overextending themselves financially.
The club is expected to officially confirm his exit in the coming days.
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Seems we’ve just bid £10m for 31 year old Nørgaard to replace 32 year old Partey. Transfer fees and wages inclusive, we might have been better off keeping Partey.
Why would he accept a one year contract and on reduced wages when he’as in line for probably the final contract of his career? I was surprised at how easily some of us called him greedy and wanted him to accept what he’s given or walk.
And he’s leaving us without winning any accolade (trophy) to remember him for. All the best to him.
Spot on!
Financially we might actually be better off replacing him, and would any of us be surprised if Partey missed at least a few months next season?
More look at it that Zubimendi is replacing Partey and Norgarrd would replace Jorgeinhio as squad player
Indeed. The only reason pundits were saying Zubi was replacing Jorginho was that Jorginho was known to be leaving at the time.
I don’t call him greedy, but on the other hand Arsenal clearly didn’t think he’d be best value by retaining him longer (on his current terms, anyway). Overall, the right decision in my opinion.
Good luck to him as you say. Unfortunately, he’s far alone in leaving Arsenal without any trophy to remember him by, which is pretty sad all round really.
* from alone
dgr8xt
You hit the nail squarely on it’s head.
Why on earth should Thomas Partey takes a reduced wage package.
Arsenal is lacking class in how they are dealing with the Ghanaian international.
A player who left his club which was an automatic champion league qualifier to represent us and this is the way we treat him.
No class , no emphaty , maybe this was what the legendary Frenchman tried hard to starred Arsenal from.
Lack of class ?
He’s not entitled to carry on earning 200-00 pound a week
I wrote last week Arsenal would be paying over the odds for someone so injury prone
@Dan: Why are you so on about someone whose contract has come to an end and you believe is he is not good enough.
He’s leaving ….. so where is your problem?
Where did I say there was a problem
I was giving my opinion about him leaving because that’s what the article is about
And I’m sticking up for Arsenal wondering how it’s a lack of class ?
@Gunsmoke: Shared sentiments.
And why must he stick around when all we say about him is all negative it nearly appears like, for example, Jorginho fared far than him.
No need for the noise. If we really needed him, we had all the time to sort things up until now. His contract has come to an end and why should he made to feel guilty for it?
Let both parties move on without all the drama
Gunsmoke,
Lack of class? What are you talking about. Partey had every right to ask for any wage that he did, and Arsenal had every right to say no thanks and move on.
There’s no lack of class in that. Just a contract coming to an end and if the player want’s a bigger pay check, then good luck to him. But it just won’t be at Arsenal’s expense. Nothing classless there.
Yeah mate that’s the point people have missed
They come at it from the players point of view thinking because they want him to stay Arsenal have too
Arsenal clearly are not desperate for him to stay and simply said if he you want to stay we are going to reflect your injury record and change that he won’t be starting every week anymore
Quality player when fit, but injured too often!
I am honestly not that bothered he’s going. It’s easy to forget that our best league campaign so far was basically without Partey. In the 23/24 season he only made 14 league appearances, and he wasn’t even match fit for at least one third of those games.
Yep. As you say, excellent player, when fit, of course. But things inevitably change.
We have Zubimendi incoming for Partey’s role.
Sell Partey for ~15-20m. Get Nørgaard for ~10m in the Jorginho role. Give MLS minutes there over the course of the season.
Spend elsewhere in the squad this summer – we have bigger issues to deal with.
We ain’t selling Partey for £15-20 millon, he is leaving on a free at the end of this month because his contract will have run out.
Whoops, yeah you’re right there.
Party had a very strong performance during the last season when he had no injuries. We bid him farewell for what he did.Arsenal should thank him and praise him for a job well done.
It’s time to rebuild the midfield.
Bring in some new blood and let Lewis-Skelly move into the midfield.
“It’s easy to forget that our best league campaign so far was basically without Partey. In the 23/24 season”
This is true – rice and jorginho made a really excellent partnership in his absence. On an individual level, Partey has been excellent for us overall, though. At times since he’s joined, he’s been one of the only players who kept playing well, which is why we felt it so much when he was gone – not so much in the 23/24 season, though.
I think he is/was a player of world class ability, but the stars never aligned while he was here – he was either the best player when we were a poor side, or he got himself injured when we were good.
I do think it’s the right time for him to be replaced in the first team, and if we can’t agree on a contract for him to stay another year with a reduced squad role (which I do think would have been ideal from our perspective), that’s fine. We all move on.
Whilst, I would agree that he wasn’t as available during the previous two seasons when we challenged strongly for the PL, his performances during the last season were quite strong. If he hadn’t been so available we would have had big problems in MF.
Losing Partey will affect our squad depth as there aren’t that many players that could readily replace him in our team. Zubimendi might prove to be a hit but we have yet to see him in our setup. Also, even if Zubi comes in and proves to be as good or better we could still do with the additional squad depth that Partey would provide.
Not a surprise really. It’s doubtful he wanted to take a pay cut (from his reported £10.5m a year currently) and Arsenal almost certainly wouldn’t have wanted to pay that for a 32-year-old with a history of injury problems.
If Arsenal sign Nørgaard then at 31 he’d be an experienced stopgap, but presumably cheaper overall than Partey.
Exactly – we also have MLS who can play there and may be headed there more often in the future, let’s not forget. If we do go for Nørgaard, it’s a pretty smart move budget-wise. Alternatives like Luiz, who is technically more of a CM, are 3x the price.
Again, if so, it would suggest to me that they were considering other potential acquisitions… like… Hato?
We will miss him and Norgard is not the answer. We obviously didn’t offer enough.
Thanks Thomas and welcome Christian.
No way should the club have offered Partey a wage increase. He is done at the top and already earning in the region of £180,000 – £200,000 a week. But wanted an increase on that too.
Crazy to think that you can demand higher wages at the age of 32 when you are not a prolific player.
Good luck to Partey.
Let’s move on.
🤞👍
Wrong decision if we aim for first place. Right decision if a place in the top five is enough for us.
Arsenal one step forward two steps backwards hmmm
Partey’s last big contract will be with a club foolish/desparate to dole out big wages to him. H e hoped it would be Arsenal. Glad we’ve called off the negotiations and pre-empted his agent’s plan to run this out until it was too late for us to get a replacement. I hear both Luiz and Palihnha want back to the EPL. Both are younger and faster and fitter than Partey. Tomas may still come crawling back.
It’s like we are about to throw away the stick before finish crossing the water, not realizing we are not out of the woods yet.
Seems we haven’t learned from the departure of Granit Xhaka