Since his transfer deadline day arrival from Atletico Madrid in 2020, Thomas Partey has been plagued with injuries and unfortunately, hasn’t featured as consistently as he would have hoped for Arsenal. The frustrations from the Arsenal hierarchy end boiled over, as the Gunners were open to selling him last summer, and it was believed that Saudi Pro League clubs, Al Nassr, Al Ahli and Al Khaleej, were interested in signing Partey for a big-money move, and Arsenal are interested in letting him go, but the move never came to fruition.
Arsenal had already sold Granit Xhaka to Bayer Leverkusen, then replaced him with Kai Havertz, and signed Declan Rice for the British transfer record fee, so it was evident that life after Partey was taking center stage this season. Or at least, preparation for it. Partey managed to go through pre-season unscathed and started the new campaign in that unorthodox inverted right back position that Mikel Arteta experimented at the tail end of the last season, which yielded no fruit, as Arsenal’s football was all over the place – the ever-reliable Gabriel was benched, Ben White, who had turned out to be quite a solid right back, was moved to center back, and Partey was asked to do the Zinchenko thing, but didn’t have the agility to maraud two playing positions effectively.
Inevitably, injury struck again, and Arteta reverted to his standard playing formation that almost delivered him the Premier League last season, with the only notable difference being a struggling Havertz trying to do the Xhaka thing, much to the chagrin of the Arsenal faithful. Partey managed to make a comeback for 15 minutes in the narrow win over Manchester City, and suffered another injury setback in September 2023, that saw him miss the African Cup of Nations the following January.
Yes, Arsenal soldiered on without him, but you can’t doubt the talents Partey possesses and his influence in the Gunners’ midfield. It took quite some time for Arteta to reintroduce Partey to the first team setup when he finally recovered in late February 2024 / early March 2024, and the Ghanaian lynchpin managed to start 10 of the last 12 games, forging a formidable partnership alongside the mercurial Rice.
With Arsenal missing out on the Premier League title to Manchester City for the second campaign in a row, Arteta and Edu understand the need to be ruthless with the squad and make quality additions to a side brewing with immense talent at its disposal. Arsenal had already been linked with a move for Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi, and in recent times, Newcastle’s Bruno Guimaraes has been mentioned as a possible punt for Arsenal this summer. The Brazilian maestro has a £100 million release clause in his contract, and he enjoyed a great campaign for the Magpies, scoring seven goals and creating nine assists in 37 Premier League games. He was also an ever-present for the Toon featuring in 50 games across all competitions.
A player as talented as Zubimendi might require some level of adaptation, and hopefully will not turn out to be another Fabio Vieira like signing, while Bruno G. is an established star in the Premier League, with two-and-a-half seasons under his belt. Like Ben White, he’s also a master of the Dark Arts, amassing eight yellow cards in the course of the season. I remember his blatant elbow on Jorginho’s face in the loss to Newcastle earlier in the campaign, and how cynical he can get when he needs to – for instance, he would have scythed Ollie Watkins further up the pitch in that Aston Villa game, rather than escort him all the way to the box and still deflect his shot into the net.
One thing we know for sure is that we may not be able to recoup the £45 million we paid for Partey four years ago, but if the plan really is to let him go, I really hope we get a quality replacement, especially when we remember the fact that we will also be without Mohamed Elneny and potentially Albert Sambi Lokonga.
Here’s to life after the Partey. It was fun while it lasted.
Sayonara.
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