Arsenal have confirmed the injury sustained by Thomas Partey last weekend will rule him out for the start of the new season.
The Ghanaian suffered ankle ligament damage in the pre-season encounter with Chelsea, and the club say that they hope he will be back in training in ‘approximately’ three weeks.
That, more than likely, means we won’t see him until after our opening three fixtures against Brentford, Chelsea and Man City, and the international break. It looks like the home clash with Norwich on September 11th will be the one where he makes his comeback.
Meanwhile, Eddie Nketiah has also been sidelined with an ankle problem picked up in the same game, with a four week time frame put on his return to training.
The striker has only 12 months left on his contract, and refused an extension, so his future was already in some doubt. The Gunners reportedly turned down a £12m bid from Crystal Palace last month, and it now remains to be seen if this injury will scupper his chance for a move elsewhere before the window closes on August 31st.
There’s a more vague update on defender Gabriel Magalhaes who withdrew from Brazil’s Olympics squad because of tendinitis in his knee. He has apparently completed a course of rehabilitation in Mexico, and will now return to London to continue his recovery. Arsenal say he will be back in contention in the ‘forthcoming’ weeks.
Mikel Arteta’s men take on Sp*rs at the Toilet Bowl on Sunday afternoon, the last game before the new season starts, and the manager will be keeping fingers crossed that his players come through that one with both a win and a clean bill of health.
3 weeks for Partey isn’t bad all things considered. Nketiah, that’s some poor luck. Hope it doesn’t have a serious impact on his transfer.
Stay positive. 3 weeks becomes 3 months? Stay positive. Nketiah leaves on a free? Stay positive. Finding out the club hid how seriously Gabriel was injured and probably had surgery? Stay positive.
Injured Fc…sigh
It’s likely to be more than 3 weeks based on what happened the last time we rushed Thomas back. Not anyone’s fault but Chelsea’s though I’m hoping it forces the club to prioritise transfer business in midfield.
It will force the club to prioritise xhaka… (again)…
Agreed. Just shocking that no one there can see just how much damage playing Xhaka dies to our club. Firstly it demoralises the fans as we know that a half mobile dynamic midfield will overrun us with him there and in turn we’ll struggle to make the top 6. He must go or at least just be a bench player.
His cover is lokonga so it’ll change nothing.
I looked forward to this summer because it meant Arteta would finally have a full pre-season with the lads and a long transfer window to shapen the squad in his own image.
But with the season starting in a less than a week, disappointed doesn’t even describe what I am feeling. And news like this one doesn’t help at all.
Beginning to question whether I should bother with the games this season; put up with a lot last season.
You’re not the only one, mate.
I actually wasnt looking forward to my arsenal part of the summer after buendia went to villa. now partey is injured and xhaka is staying and will be indespensible again. Nketiah injured. Same ol’ arsenal really 🤷🏼♀️ except we don’t even play in Europe this year.
It’s disappointing news about Partey and I feel the same way but I hope he stays fit after this injury and it’s best to be cautious with him. But this is why we brought in Lokonga and if he plays with Xhaka, it’s not the worst. Lokonga is ready. A versatile midfielder would be perfect and with the players we’ve been linked with I’m sure Edu and co know this.
Lokonga is not ready to just walk in and start games he struggled badly with the pace of Chelseas midfield and the game in general I think he’s one for the future. I still think we should be going for Bissouma and sell Elneny Torreira and maybe even Willock although I’d rather we loan Willock than sell him outright I think another loan to Newcastle could be good. As for Nketiah he looked good in pre season on the left I think He should be deployed more on the left where he gets involved more in the game and improves… Read more »
Sell to whom ? We have such a bag of shit on our books who we pay way to much to in wages. As a club we are an absolute shambles and this season is not going to be any better.
I give it 6 games and the stadium will be as toxic as its ever been especially on the back of last season
This.
Been supping from the glass half empty for a few years now, cannot see anything changing, to think our ambitions this season will be top 6 is pitiable, long long disappointing season ahead for us again……
Lokonga is not ready, Saliba is not ready. Only inexperienced British talent at an inflated price are ready…
I keep hearing “full pre-season” and a”long transfer window” from a lot of Arsenal fans. I HOPE this is the last excuse to keep a manager who is not qualified to take us back into the top 4. Chelsea was in the same boat as us. They had Lampard who is an ex-player loved by the fans, but let’s be honest, no managerial experience (same as Arteta). They brought in a Top class manager who finished in the top 4 and beat City in the final of the Champions League. I know Chelsea splash more cash than us, but a… Read more »
Couldn’t have put it better myself. 👍🍺
Lampard had at least managed Derby County in the Championship and had finished 4th in his first season at Chelsea despite a transfer ban. Nothing groundbreaking but still. We at Arsenal are essentially hoping that Arteta is an undiscovered genius. Those odds are at least 20/1.
The only positive that the fans can highlight is that we are defending more as a team. How is a tactical system any good when you can only point to one positive?
The problem with the comparison is that Chelsea spent enormous amounts to buy new players. Yes, some of that was from selling a few of their 700 players who were always out on loan–but where did they get all those players in the first place?
Which is why Kroenke needs to go and we, as a fan base, need to quit this ‘better the devil you know’ shite and realise there are actually alternatives out there.
The two Nigerian billionaires for a start. Daniel Ek for another. Mathieu Flamini for another.
They should all get together and have a quarter share in a brand new consortium to make Kroenke an offer even that stupid wig wearing idiot couldn’t refuse.
Only then, with Kroenke gone, will we start investing properly in the squad.
One overpriced centre back and two relatively unknown midfielders. God, it’s pathetic.
Yeah. We were told there’s a £200M war chest for Arteta to “rebuild” his squad. A week to the season kicking off, and we still have at least 4 deadwoods yet to be offloaded, still not seeing who will get us that 20+ goals, and still a few positions short – GK, RB upgrade, creative midfielder. At this stage we can only hope for the best and that’s the kind of state we’re in. Hoping.
The squad is bloated regardless of how much money is available to spend, I don’t think the club wants to have to unregister excess players again. Arteta and Edu can either let players go for a little bit less than we’d prefer or make do with the current squad until some of their contracts run out.
Well, it looks like their choosing the latter. After all their big talk in May.
As Stan’s fellow compatriots might say “What a bunch of crap!”
* they’re
aaawww – get the tissues. Welcome to supporting a football club mate. It aint all winning the Premier League and CL footy. In the 70s and 80s we were just happy to stay up! 🙂
Ok. Fair enough. So why hasn’t the club gotten the message then? Why does a club not in European football contention have season tickets and matchday catering prices more expensive than Chelsea or West Ham? Why does a club not in the Champions League have fringe players on £40,000+ and squad players on £100,000+ per week? Why is the expenditure of a declining club increasing while its yearly revenue is decreasing? Just rhetorical questions but ultimately Arsenal hasn’t really behaved like a club that’s facing up to its reality so far. It’s not surprising that some fans have higher expectations… Read more »
There was only one season I can recollect that we were struggling to stay up and that was 1975/76. The rest of the time we were at least in the top half of the table and we won the title in each decade too. This club should be top four and people like you, who are prepared to stomach mediocrity season in season out, are a big reason why the hierarchy of this club are more or less given carte blanche to take the piss out of us all and Edu is currently sunning himself in Spain without a care… Read more »
Seriously, I think talking xhaka into staying tells us that as far as midfield goes we’ve been playing exactly how he wants. He’s done everything possible to hide his weaknesses. Why keep a player you’re having to shoehorn into your team? He’s so integral and everything moves around him. Either you expose him (in which case why keep him) or you play the same. I think what we’ve seen is what we get. Keeping xhaka in my mind means all the change on the pitch I was dubiously starting to anticipate has disappeared. It would’ve been a terrible message to… Read more »
Half of me says £12m is better than nothing when trying to trim the squad but on the other hand we do need a tougher stance when selling players. Someone said that since edu has been involved Arsenal have only actually sold (as it received a real transfer fee) one player! Can anyone confirm this? Shocking if accurate.
Sanhelli only left less than a year ago (15 August 2020) so it’s not really a huge sample size, time wise.
Sam Greenwood to Leeds for £3m happened a couple of weeks after that. So yep Martinez to Villa for £20m is the only one that Edu was probably fully in charge of.
I think 12m for Nketiah would have been a fair deal.
Yeah it’s technically correct… If you remove the COVID-19 economy and loan with options to buy as mitigating factors. Not entirely sure who exactly was responsible for them but these are the outgoings with transfer fees (excl. Loan fees) we attribute to each staff member Edu Gaspar [July 2019 – Present] Emi Martinez – £15.66m rising to £20m in add-ons Raul Sanllehi [ February 2018 – August 2020] Alex Iwobi – £27.3m rising to £35m in add-one Krystian Bielik – £7.3m rising to £10m in add-one Laurent Koscielny – £4.5m David Ospina – £3.15m Carl Jenkinson – £1.98m Yakima Asano… Read more »
You need a column in the blog. Top class research and writing there
Arsene may be gone, but the dreaded ”three week injuries” are still here.
The difference with Wenger teams is that you always knew that the football would be open and attacking and that we would score our fair share of goals no matter what.
Could we have Wenger against teams outside top 6 and substitute him, so Arteta would play the tougher teams?
Smash the minnows from the off and shut up shop against the big boys.
Seems like a plan to me. We actually have a team capable of doing just that.
It’s the little bloke in the dugout with the handset that’s the problem.
Except his last 2 seasons
I think you’ll find that in Arsene’s final seasons, we scored our fair share (mostly courtesy of Auba) but we conceded our fair share too (mostly courtesy of Mustafi).
I’m struggling to remember when I have dreaded a new season before and I can’t. I have never dreaded a new season before – until now.
Paradoxically, I can vividly remember when I couldn’t wait for the season to start. 1983/84 after we signed Charlie Nicholas (then the hottest property in the game), 1997/98 when we’d signed Overmars and Petit (Premiership title incoming) and 2001/02 after we’d made every single Spud on the planet want to top themselves after we signed Sol Campbell (Premiership title incoming).
Aaah, good memories. Thank fuck for them.
I remember times where pundits say before a game: “They have no chance against Arsenal, won’t see any of the ball” and after the game: “That’s the kind of treatment Arsenal gives to teams like Blackburn Rovers, 5-1.
It’s going to be a while before you’ll hear pundits say that about us again.
Arteta will likely play his strongest 11 tomorrow in prep for Brentford, so it’ll be curious to see if he partners Xhaka with Elneny or Lokonga.
Although clouded with that new-signing bias, I hope he goes with the more adventurous Lokonga. In reality he’ll stick with the safe Elneny against Man City and Chelsea.
I don’t understand what ‘safe’ means? How is something safe when you are guaranteed to lose anyway? Starting Elneny and Xhaka together against any half decent midfield in the premier league is a guaranteed loss. In fact I’d say it’s the weakest starting pair in the whole league. If Anything Lokonga or Willock is the safe option because it gives our midfield dynamism and purpose, and we may at least score a goal. If he goes for Xhaka/Elneny it will be 0 points from 3 games, probably 0 goals scored, bottom of the league and Arteta will be bang in… Read more »
Bear in mind, we are starting the season with a strike force who can’t score goals currently, zero midfield, a wantaway goalkeeper and a defence who, judging by preseason is a complete shambles. All while Edu swans off on holiday. Heads need to roll now, this is negligence
Not often I agree with you mate, but credit where it’s due here.
You’re spot on. 👍🍺
Okay, I’m probably one of the more pessimistic posters on the site, but this post seems too negative even for me.
Our defense was very good last season and wantaway or not, Leno is not a problem.
I also hope our strikers can score. If they can’t there’s Pepe, Martinelli and likely Nketiah (cause we suck at selling) and Balogun.
I’m not going to defend our midfield, but Lokonga looks a bright spot.
I think heads should have rolled last season, or should roll in November at the earliest.
Then again, my expectations for next season are very low.
We’re not guaranteed to lose. We beat Chelsea home and away last season.
Safe means I don’t believe Arteta will throw 21 year old Lokongo in at the deep end against City and Chelsea. But if he starts tomorrow and has a blinder, who knows.
Harshly said but very good points made.
Those cunts up the road will be kicking anything that moves.
Just hope our lads can rise above it, treat the game for what it is (although, to be fair, there is absolutely no such thing as a ‘friendly’ against that lot – nor should there be) and just TRY and remain injury free.
Yes, it’s them but I honestly couldn’t give a shit if they trash us by six or seven – so long as all our lads come through it injury free and a few of theirs are maimed for life.
We can kick them back.
I’d rather it was ELNENY and lokonga. At least let the young lad (lokonga) play his game rather than bend to xhaka’s. Eleneny does nothing progressive but he’ll always support the guy on the ball and help get them out of trouble. It’s less than what you want from a central midfielder but at least he compliments more talented players. Its the opposite to the xhaka effect
In other news, Brazil won the Olympics 🙂
Martinelli wasn’t in the squad 🙁
I dont understand y u take a player n leave him out of the sqad
Well you need a squad to cover for injuries and suspensions. I wonder if he’ll be available to make the Arsenal bench for Brentford on Friday. If we’re struggling to break them down with 20 minutes left, Martinelli is exactly who we need.
Martinelli scored a penalty in the semi-final shoot-out.
Yep I meant he wasn’t in the squad for the final.
Nonetheless he’s still has an Olympic Gold medal 🏅 in his cabinet shelf. Nelli the Olympian.
Hoping for a fast recovery for Partey.
Still, we have Xhaka who wanted to leave not so long ago but now looks if he will be signing a new deal soon.
For the life of me I cannot understand why Arsenal are offering this
With the form Xhaka displayed at the Euro’s surely selling him on wouldn’t have been a challenge.
Xhaka being there limits Lokonga and Willock…
“Forthcoming weeks”. Hopefully not the new term for the old dreaded “3 weeks”, that would turn into 3 months
Should’ve taken 12m for Eddie with 12months left of his contract ffs!!
And so it starts….
What a miserable bunch football fans are.
I’ll always support the Arsenal with hope at the beginning of every season. Give the team at least 10 games to show us what they’ve got before casting judgement.
Can’t understand fickle arsenal fans too. No ball has yet been kicked but have already thrown the towel against oil city n chelshit. do u think that arteta is setting out to lose as many games as possible? 2 what end?
He is not setting out to lose games of course.
But he will anyway.
And thats the point…
I can understand the anxiety among fans. We haven’t replaced Odegaard, we still don’t know who’s going to be our right-back this season, Xhaka had one foot out the door and now staying, and Runarsson is our current #2.
Taking a bit of a high horse stance there aren’t we’re. Some fans are just more pessimistic just as some are optimistic. Doesn’t make one less of a fan than the other. The pessimistic fans, and I consider myself one of them, will still tune in on match days and follow news about Arsenal almost daily. I just can’t see how with the addition of Ben White to our first XI, and everything else being tc instant, we’d suddenly climb our way from 8th to top 4.
Not implying that I’m happy with the transfer business to date, but you don’t think moving from Luiz to White can make a six point difference?? I certainly do. The bigger problem is the arms race taking place between City, Chelsea and MU – simply can’t keep pace with that, sadly.
Mate, if this team was a boxer, the ref would be stopping the game before it’s even begun.
We have the players, but the way they’re rigidly being instructed (ordered) to play is a forgone conclusion for bang average at best and downright mediocre at worst.
At the time of writing, with Odegaard gone, we are actually weaker in midfield and up front than we were at the end of last season. What on earth makes you think that that’s a catalyst for an improvement……..?
Blind hope perhaps. The trouble is history is really against you. Arsenal have been poor for years and last year under Arteta was the worst in decades. Do you really think an over priced defender and a pair of players that, if you were honest you would say you had never heard of before are going to make a blind bit of difference? Underwhelming is one way to put our “rebuilding”. Disappointing is another. Absolute garbage is more to the point. But that is the problem with Arsenal – giving chances until there is nothing to fight for. Arteta will… Read more »
Wouldn’t it be better for you to take a break till Christmas and join us back next year. I hope it helps you
Mate, the dude has as much right to his opinion as you.
What’s more, his opinion is probably a darn sight more realistic than yours, but hey ho, everyone’s allowed a say, right….?
The opinion of a Spud fan about AFC is more realistic than that of an Arsenal fan?
Good to know. Evidently boss-man blogs thinks so too. You certainly don’t see that everyday😎
What Spud fan?
Yeah, yeah.
Anybody who doesn’t worship at the feet of Arteta or Kroenke is clearly a Spurs fan, not a Gooner, right….?
Oh the irony.
I have old school mates who are Tottenham fans who take great delight in our current situation (and yes, don’t worry, I am every bit as keen to wipe the floor with them and remind them in no uncertain terms, as ever, of theirs).
The thing is, they all want Arteta and Kroenke to stay at The Arsenal forever and a day.
Make of that what you will…….
When you put it like that I agree. I have friends/family that support United, Liverpool and Chelsea. Not many Tottenham fans where I live. Generally speaking, I dislike Chelsea and United fans far more than I do Tottenham due to their pompous nature. The Manure and Chelski guys have always been the loudest and most arrogant about wanting Mikel to stay forever too. They don’t even care about their record against him, which is quite telling. @leon just comes across as too hateful of the club to be a Gooner, it has nothing to do with wanting Arteta or Kroenke… Read more »
Even if someone is negative, please don’t accuse them of being a Sp*rs fan.
Alrighty👍
This was the lineup 4 our 3-1 win over chelsea.
B Leno,
H Bellerin (c)
R Holding
P Villar
K Tierney
M Elneny
G Xhaka
B Saka
E Smith-Rowe
G Martinelli
A Lacazette
Who has departed 4 us 2 b considered weaker or worse off?
Here’s hoping. 🤞
We may have not heard of lok n nuno b4 but we had heard a lot about william. See my point?
Partey’s injury record since joining Arsenal has been poor. He didnt miss this many games at Atletico Madrid. He seems to be in this constant circle of get injured, come back, play some games, get injured again. I dont even know if it is bad luck or something else.
If Gabriel went to Mexico does that mean he’ll be in a quarantine hotel as they’re now on the red list?
That came into effect from 4am this morning. He surely would have left the country before the deadline.
Who decided to organise a pre season friendly against a local rival club we are due to play in the first few games of the season??
Money decided it my friend.
I don’t get why, of all the teams available, we have to play Sp*rs today. I know they’re a London team which reduces travel but playing a big rival in a friendly just before the start of the season is asking for trouble (as was Chelsea). Better off playing a Championship club. Can only hope the injuries happen on their side, not ours. At least Partey’s injury isn’t quite as bad as was feared, but still it’s not good news. A baptism of fire for Lokonga then, or a stale Elneny/Xhaka combo looks likely. I’d rather see Willock alongside Xhaka,… Read more »
As much as missing out on any European football this year hurt I tried to look at the bright side that it would likely be the catalyst for much needed change with the squad as well as allow us to be more rested and prepared for league matches to get us back into the top 6 (at a minimum, but top 4 really). However, he were are a week from the season starting and for the most part are going to go with the same team we had to finish the year minus Odegaard and Partey (two of our stronger… Read more »