Thomas Partey could miss as many as seven matches with Arsenal expected to rule the midfielder out until after the October Interlull, according to the Evening Standard.
Mikel Arteta confirmed yesterday that the 30-year-old has suffered a groin or thigh injury that “doesn’t look good” and the Ghana FA has already ruled him out of their upcoming AFCON qualifier with Central African Republic.
While his country reported their midfielder would be sidelined for two weeks – presumably on the basis of an initial medical report from Arsenal – further scans are expected to confirm the need for a longer spell in the treatment room.
Arsenal have four Premier League (Everton, Sp*rs, Bournemouth and Manchester City), two Champions League (PSV Eindhoven and Lens) and a Carabao Cup match with Brentford before Chelsea visit the Emirates, after the October international break.
Partey was in attendance at yesterday’s match and drove himself to the ground, so whatever he’s done, it’s not completely debilitated him.
Get well soon…Jorginho’s experience should be a buffer…shows how much we’ve scaled up..going from having only elneny and sambi as back up….
I love Jorginho. While he has some deficiencies compared to Partey he also gives us things Partey doesn’t and I think will be especially good fit with Rice who will cover for some of his athletic shortcomings.
Waiting to see a Rice-Jorginho-Odegaard midfield…. talk about ball retention.
Indeed, and also talk about intelligent reading of the game!
Gutted. Why does it always have to be like this. Partey in full flow is a sight to behold. Majestic. Against City and an inform spurs we definitely gonna miss him.
Saw the Zinchenko interview with Rio Ferdinand where he says Partey is the best midfielder he played with and will choose him over Rodri or Fernandinho or Casamiero. That tell’s us how good he is. Only if he didn’t have all these niggling injuries.
Sigh. Didn’t expect he’d stay healthy too long playing at RB. Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery.
Yes, playing right back causes so many injuries.
I played right back once and nearly died.
Not looked at the stats, but is he having to exert himself more covering full back and midfield? He’s a bit brittle so asking him to do this may not be the best thing. When he’s back, just put him back in central midfield. On his day he is right up there with best centre mids in the league. Not many others have his skill set so use him to his maximum.
I never got this complaint, defensive midfield is one of the most taxing positions if not the most taxing.
I thought fullback in the modern game was the most demanding in terms of running.
Ok, so I looked it up and it seems we’re both right, or both wrong in a way. Apparently midfielders cover the most distance, but fullbacks and wingers have the most sprints
https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr68/en/
I guess for Partey and his tendency to pull muscles and groins the latter is probably worse than just running a whole lot at less than his maximum pace, so I probably have to concede here. Don’t play him at full back Mikel. Anyway he’s not even that good there…
He’s not great there, but the system we want to play requires a player who can do both roles, and when Timber and Zinchenko are out, who else can? He’s doing a job for the team out of necessity. Timber was supposed to be our insurance policy against having to use him there, but here we are.
Also important to remember that he is new to this role. For the majority of last season he looked awesome playing as the lone 6. That’s his best position. I think he gets too much flak honestly. We forget how good he was in his best position for so much of last season.
Good point. Kiwior maybe?? Zinchenko is just so incredibly natural at it, it almost feels unfair to compare any other player to that.
So play that system an invert a wingback when Zinny is fit and available. When he is not play to the strength of the players you have available.
That’s a good point, but I think you have to consider the impact to your team if you change the system too much because one player isn’t available. Far better to plan ahead for his absence with an outstanding replacement and keep improving plan A. That’s what we did this summer. But that outstanding replacement is injured, so plan A depends on Zinchenko to make it hum. I didn’t see us experiment with a completely different type of system in preseason. We have variations on it depending on who is starting, and the dynamic can be different up front depending… Read more »
Yeah the boss had a look at Kiwior there in preseason. Results were.. mixed.
Good search. Either way, this probably explains why Thomas keeps getting injured in the more demanding Premier league.
I had hoped to see what a Party, Rice and Odegaard midfield looked like in tight games, but he’ll probably miss them now.
Amen
Depends on the system, but in general, that’s probably true. Partey has all the goods to do it too.
From what I understood though it was a training ground injury and nothing to do with where he’s being used or how.
Wear and tear and overload can lead to training ground injuries though to be fair
I think his age is catching up with him a little and we are demanding a lot. He was better last season in a settled position.
I think a “traditional” fullback (say, Kyle Walker or Tierney) makes many long runs, some of them full-out sprints, and often puts in more mileage than anyone (except perhaps a “traditional” winger). The way Zinchenko (or Partey) play the position, there are far fewer runs from their own penalty area all the way to the opponent’s base line. A number 6, especially if he is solo, has a huge distance to cover–and often with repeated 30-40 yard sprints. Think of Kante.
I think it’s more to do with a different set of strain than workload. Right Fullback requires a different king of mobility and that may have strained less conditioned muscle fibres.
At 30, TP is not the right player to shift out of position especially considering his history with injuries. Experiment all you wish but at the very least do so with younger players
Rid.
At this point Reuell Walters has to play in the cup as we only have two senior players to cover our starting back four (not counting Cedric).
It’s a bit nuts right? We’re two injuries in defense away from a total crisis now. 😬
I think most teams would be in crisis after 4 injuries in the same department. We currently have our first choice back 4 fit and Tomiyasu and Kiwior as backup options. That’s pretty good. It’s also important to consider that it’s all quite fungible. If Saliba is injured, we slide White over and start Tomi at RB. If Gabriel is injured, same thing. It’s not the same but we don’t lose too much ground. The player who is hardest to replace is Zinchenko. There might be 2-3 players in the world who can seamlessly slot between LB and LCM like… Read more »
Know we have a pretty small sample size, but I don’t think even Timber’s close to Zinny’s level at that particular job to be honest. Zinchenko’s basically a player blessed with the natural technique of an Ozil/Santi, but just happens to operate towards the left side of defence. Just a joy to watch, and a real shame that he never seems to be completely free of those injury issues. Hope our squad size gives us the chance to manage him for the big moments this season where he’ll be most needed
Tomi is decent at the role, as he did when he came on, but he’s very injury prone too, he’s a really crucial piece right now because he can cover all 4 positions. Let’s hope he stays fit and the others, but we have A LOT of games. We need to rotate and avoid injury. IMO, with our current resources Walters is absolutely in the mix for the domestic cups.
I love Tomi, but the last thing I want to see is him in central midfield trying to knit play together… he needs to be playing safety on the weak side while other players do stuff on the ball. He is perfectly adequate technically for a defender, but inverted? No. No no no no.
cedric isn’t going to be registered, arteta isn’t counting him either
Still time for Turkey and Saudi
Injured again? What a shocker! Atleast we won’t be forced to see Ben White at CB and Partey at RB for a few weeks.
Rice and Jorginho should do. He can take his time and get back fit.
Partey is a central midfielder and cannot cope with the demands of covering fullback and tucking into midfield too. He will be a great asset this season if his playing time is managed.
Arse
Feck
Gobshite!
GIRLS
DRINK
that would be an ecumenical matter…
For those people who have rather chosen not to see that the reason why Partey plays at right-back is to have more midfielders on the pitch against teams that pack the bus.
When Arsenal plays a game and are expected to have 50-70% of possession what more than to adapt to that style of play.
To my best of knowledge, we play a back 5 with White playing the wingback with TP5 in the middle. Timber was to help make it more congested in the middle but for the injury
Or quite simply to be able to play the same system we did last season in the absence of Timber and Zin.
I was watching this at our local gooner pub, and remarked to one of the guys that it’s a shame that our injuries now force us to line up with our strongest defense… Obviously bad news for Partey, but we have ample cover. Rice was (in my mind) the “cover” for Partey, and Jorginho has proven to be a really solid performer, bringing a calmness that I really like. Lord (Bendtner!) knows if we’ll ever see ESR, but even so, we’ve got plenty of talent to move around. Trossard. Vieira. Nelson, Havertz, etc. I know they’re not “defensive” midfielders, but… Read more »
Partey did a job for the team because Zinchenko wasn’t fit. This had nothing to do with tinkering or trying to re-invent Partey and everything to do with the fitness of Zin and Timber.
Zinchenko’s absence was also the reason big Gabi didn’t play the first 3 games. Without Zin, we needed all the ball progression we could get from the back. We had enough stoppers with Kiwior or Tomiyasu. With Zin, we have that in spades so big Gabi brings balance with his outstanding defensive work to cover for Zin.
if its six initial weeks, then 3 of those weeks will have passed after this week and the international break, so its not all bad. also it gives us an opportunity to see what the side will look like in april when he’s inevitably out for the run in.
He’ll be back just in time for the African Nations Cup
If car and Angola both win, Ghana could be eliminated from the draw
Hindsight is 20/20 but I really wish we’d managed to get him out to Saudi this summer
Arteta has to be careful bringing him back topo soon given his age and injury history to make sure he is 100% healthy and fit so he doesn’t tweak the groin or pickup anything else as often happens. We all saw how much he dropped off last year when he was surely dealing with something, but before that drop off was one of the top midfielders in the league for much of the year.
Does anyone know his injury history for Athetoco Madrid?
He was nearly Xhaka like in his availability.. the injury gods really fuck us over
Get well soon, Partey.🙏🏾
Hopefully Saudis come in again after Christmas or in the summer, and we can upgrade.