Arsenal have revealed that a muscle injury has kept Thomas Partey out of the matchday squad to face Sevilla on Tuesday. The Ghana international has struggled with a bout of injuries throughout his time at the Emirates.
He had recovered from a groin injury prior to the international break and played in both friendlies for his country in matches against Mexico and the United States. Partey was then left on the bench in Arsenal’s 2-2 draw against Chelsea at the weekend.
But he’s been left out of the matchday squad altogether for Arsenal’s match in Spain. Arsenal released a statement confirming why Partey was unavailable for selection.
It read: “Thomas Partey misses out on tonight’s game with a muscle issue.”
The midfielder was pictured in team training on Monday, suggesting he was fit and ready to play. But it appears as though Partey suffered a setback prior to Arsenal’s match against Sevilla.
The news will be another blow to Mikel Arteta, who has been unable to rotate his midfield three as much as he would have liked this year due to Partey’s injury issues. Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice have started every one of Arsenal’s matches this season while Arteta has chopped and changed between Kai Havertz and Jorginho as the third midfielder.
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The Arsenal boss is lacking in options to provide cover for Rice should the England international suffer an injury of his own. But Partey’s latest setback is another blow to Arteta’s original plans from the summer where he wanted to create a formidable partnership in midfield.
“They can play together and that was in my plans,” he said. “You want to improve the squad and have more quality.
“We need players who can play together but we need players in the same position who can fight for their places. It’s something we haven’t had over the last few years and we wanted to improve that and that’s why we bought Declan.”
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