Mikel Arteta has bullishly insisted Thomas Partey is a ‘super important player’ for Arsenal and that he will not be sold this summer despite Declan Rice’s arrival.
Mikel Arteta has bullishly insisted Thomas Partey is a ‘super important player’ for Arsenal and that he will not be sold this summer despite Declan Rice’s arrival.
This could well be posturing to push his price up. Or it could be a distraction of some kind while they quietly work on bringing in a younger replacement. But purely from a technical quality perspective he’d be a fantastic backup for Rice, and his for rotating with Jorginho and Elneny for domestic cup matches. That doesn’t take into account certain allegations and the awkwardness/bad PR of having someone in the squad with that baggage though.
Yeah I’d like to offload him before his personal situation gets worse, but there’s no doubt about his quality.