Manchester City’s monopoly on the Premier League title has been fixed throughout the Pep Guardiola era.
The only plausible threat was Liverpool during the 2019/20 season, although Arsenal had a golden opportunity during the 2022/23 campaign before falling away as City upped their tempo.
Key to the Gunners’ successes last term was the midfield partnership of Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka. Together, this formidable pair created a lot of opportunities for other creative players on the squad.
But with Xhaka now gone and Partey on the treatment table, Arsenal haven’t been as dominant in 2023/24, with rumors abounding that they might be eyeing more midfield reinforcements in the January transfer window. Could that spell an end to Partey’s time in London?
No Thomas, No Partey
With eight wins from their opening 12 games, it’s not been a disastrous start to the 2023/24 season by any means for Arsenal. That said, the latest football odds
for the Premier League make them a +400 chance to win the title – meaning that they’ve lost ground, since the start of the campaign, to Manchester City (-225).
The Premier League top 4 odds, however, make for a more pleasant read with the -700 price on the Gunners offering an 87.5% implied probability that they will be playing Champions League football next season. But is that enough for an ambitious club that came so close to a long-overdue Premier League title in 2022/23?
Newcastle 1-0 Arsenal
Arsenal’s unbeaten Premier League start to the season ends, while Newcastle pick up their latest impressive victory. pic.twitter.com/jtPzjbqMzH
— Opta Analyst (@OptaAnalyst) November 4, 2023
Central to their hopes of improvement will be Partey, whose positional sense, energy, and aggression in midfield are vital to a team with such attacking principals. Unfortunately, the Ghanaian’s catalog of injuries means that, at the time of writing, he’s missed more than a month of club and international football since the middle of October – and hasn’t completed 90 minutes for the Gunners since August.
The concern is that Mikel Arteta is losing patience with his midfield maestro, with Arsenal’s former star Gilberto Silva claiming he had ‘heard’ that the club is in the market to bolster their options in the middle of the park.
The Italian Job?
Although we shouldn’t give too much credence to ‘paper talk’, it has been reported by numerous sources that Partey is angling a move away from London – with Juventus touted as one of the most likely destinations for the 30-year-old.
Arteta revealed in the summer that he considers the Ghanaian to be a ‘super important’ part of his team, but his ongoing injury problems are a concern for a manager with only limited options at his disposal.
Thomas Partey misses out on tonight’s game with a muscle issue.
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) October 24, 2023
The matter is complicated by AFCON early in 2024, which will mean that Partey might not pull on the red shirt of Arsenal again until the spring. So the Gunners may look to cash in on a player who could still recoup much of the £45 million they paid for him to Atletico Madrid in 2020.
It would be a sad situation for Partey, who has spoken of his love for life in London in the past. But, in football as in life, all good things must come to an end…
Categories: News
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
