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Arsenal blow as Arteta confirms key man suffered injury against Tottenham

By on December 7, 2020

Thomas partey

If Arsenal’s defeat to Tottenham wasn’t bad enough, Mikel Arteta has confirmed Thomas Partey aggravated his thigh injury during the game.

The Ghanaian international initially suffered the problem during our defeat to Aston Villa in early November and was ruled out of Arsenal’s subsequent games against Leeds, Molde, Wolves and Rapid Vienna.

Recent team news updates on Arsenal.com had suggested that Partey wasn’t close to returning to action but Arteta surprised us all after revealing in the build-up to the North London Derby that the 27-year-old was in contention.

Like most footballers, Partey was desperate to play and Arsenal rushed him back to start against Tottenham on Sunday, despite the fact he’d only taking part in a couple of training sessions.

The former Atletico Madrid star started reasonably well but shortly before half time he pulled up and hobbled to the side of the pitch just as Tottenham broke on Arsenal to score the killer second goal. It was a poor decision by Partey to leave the field while the ball was still in play and he was replaced by Dani Ceballos at half-time.

Speaking after the game last night, Arteta confirmed that Partey has aggravated his thigh injury and will need to be assessed to see how serious the issue is. He told Arsenal.com:

on the Thomas Partey situation…
I haven’t seen the action repeated. But it is an injury and it is in the same area unfortunately. We don’t know how bad it is. I was trying to push him but I don’t think he realised the gravity of the situation when he left his position but that was probably because he was in a lot of pain. It’s nothing we can do at the moment to resolve that.

This is infuriating. I said in my preview ahead of the game that we shouldn’t rush Partey back or take any risks with him as he may aggravate the injury, and that’s exactly what happened. He was clearly not ready to start, especially in such a high intensity derby, and this has to fall at Arteta’s feet.

There is no way the boss should have rushed Partey back and not only might the decision have cost us a result at Spurs [as Partey’s injury led to their second goal], but now we’re going to be without the player again – probably for a few weeks.

It’s a nightmare scenario that could have been avoided. The fact Arteta rushed Partey back shows just how much pressure he’s under. Would he have done it if Arsenal went into the NLD off the back of 4-5 wins and were playing well? No chance.

Let’s hope Partey’s injury isn’t too serious, but Arteta needs to sort this out ASAP before it’s too late.