Thomas Partey: Midfield Tank Engine

[mirrorstare]

Not a good game, but nothing.

Not a good game.

 

[Breezy ®]

Starting to see why all the top clubs didn’t bother even with his lowish release clause.

 

[Melquiades]

Hmmm .... I thought he was mostly very good today outside of the continued horrible long-range attempts. Won a ton of balls in midfield. A couple sloppy passes but also some very good ones and was more good than bad.

 

[Legend14]

He played fine today. Nothing too exciting, sure. He is the engine and he is adjusting to that responsibility.

He’s been playing well if you know football. If you don’t, and you think he should be Messi, then of course he will disappoint. Teams do not come down the Arsenal middle for a reason, and he always looks to progress the ball, even when the forwards just sit there.

He needs to practice shooting if he wants to add that to his game.

 

[14Henry]

He played fine today. Nothing too exciting, sure. He is the engine and he is adjusting to that responsibility.

He’s been playing well if you know football. If you don’t, and you think he should be Messi, then of course he will disappoint. Teams do not come down the Arsenal middle for a reason, and he always looks to progress the ball, even when the forwards just sit there.

He needs to practice shooting if he wants to add that to his game.

He hasn't been playing well. He has been OK. Nothing more nothing less. Nobody is expecting Messi. We are simply expecting a defensive minded midfielder not to get sold so quickly by a change of direction and dangle his leg out every time at the edge of the box. He almost cost us the game against Sp**s. He ran off the pitch against Sp**s in the first game. He gave away again some silly fouls tonight in dangerous areas.

He also needs to stop shooting especially when off balance. He isn't good at it and he should be told to stop doing it. It is a complete waste.

Some of his passing isn't great either.

He is nowhere near our biggest problem. He is doing OK and there's more problems in the team but I would expect a little better overall for the outlay. That could come with more adaption to the league and a decent manager. So he does get some leeway. But next season we need a much better individual level.

 

[rich 1990]

He was dreadful. His shooting killed about 5 attacks.

 

[TinFish]

He's been average at best. I think a new manager would bring more out of him.

 

[Hunta]

Been a shocking signing you have to say. £45m up front, meant to be the new Vieira and he’s been at best a poor mans Song. Finishing bottom half in all likelihood, was it worth it?

 

[Trilly]

This is the conversation AM hasn't been having for the past 8 months. He isn't Yaya or PV4, imo he's a Fernandinho. Just because he can make some excellent forward passes doesn't mean he's not a holding midfielder.

Also go look at his stats and who they're similar to, it's Yves Bissouma, who plays as the deepest midfielder for Brighton.

Think about Utd's midfield right now with Pogba and Bruno, pretty much universal agreement that what it needs is a McTominay/Fred upgrade. Frankly they should have bought Partey last summer. Now their fans want Bissouma. Partey/Bissouma plus Pogba and Bruno is a complete midfield. We have one of those elements, maybe the AM if we get Ødegaard or someone else. What we don't have is a Pogba. There's a good argument that that's the type of CM we need.

Yeah I let A-M convince me that he was a number 8 even though my instincts told me he wasn’t.

He’d be a decent no8 but a world class number 6. You can see that while he has the forward pass in his locker it’s not quite his forte and I think we’ve seen enough now to stop saying his passing is off and just accept he’s not a Santi/Pogba type of CM.

If we have him as our secondary distributor with a no8 of his quality next to him then we go from being this current mess to a top 4 type team almost overnight imo.

 

[Trilly]

Oh yeah and add him to the (growing) list of proven players who seem to have dropped a level under Mikel.

 

[Melquiades]

He played fine today. Nothing too exciting, sure. He is the engine and he is adjusting to that responsibility.

He’s been playing well if you know football. If you don’t, and you think he should be Messi, then of course he will disappoint. Teams do not come down the Arsenal middle for a reason, and he always looks to progress the ball, even when the forwards just sit there.

He needs to practice shooting if he wants to add that to his game.

I'm baffled by the criticism of his game today.

He was immense off the ball today and ate the Everton midfield alive. Disrupted everything through the middle of the pitch and won a ton of ball. Huge reason why they had 1 shot on target in 90 minutes and virtually zero cohesive buildup play.

Going forward he's prone to the occasionally overly ambitious pass and obviously the long-range attempts have been consistently awful. And maybe that's easier to notice? But it doesn't come close to negating all the other good things he's doing out there.

 

[HaffBR]

I think he is a bit overrated here, he is an useful player, no doubt, but he isn't very good let alone elite/world class.

 

[Taneruit]

Hmmm .... I thought he was mostly very good today outside of the continued horrible long-range attempts. Won a ton of balls in midfield. A couple sloppy passes but also some very good ones and was more good than bad.

Thought that too. His worst period of the game was before the break with the two dangerous free kick positions he gave away. Everton has way too decent freekick takers to give those away.

Otherwise I thought he was fine, though as with other things I don't know if I like him that much as a single pivot. There's a bit of creativity and attacking threat lost further up the pitch.

 

[gunner4lyfe]

He tried to play a lot of passes through the middle and a lot of them were unsuccessful because the other players were always moving towards the wing. Hate that we're afraid to play through teams nowadays

 

[hyruga2]

Pretty much useless player.

Quite slow, not enthusiastic enough. Poor at dribbling. Not involved in one-two because he doesn't run forward after passing. He's focused on passing only and doesn't try anything outrageous. It isn't a bad thing but you expect more. A lazy player who passes the ball whenever he gets it and then doesn't run much after passing. Basically, he was happy with his new contract at Arsenal and stopped trying. NOT AN ENGINE AT ALL.

Many players are better than him. Ceballos supposedly was only available at 25 mil is more technically gifted on the ball and tries harder. Now they have a Ceballos who is on loan and playing 1 in 2 games, disrupting team play and understanding because the line up keep changing every week.

Also, a central midfielder absolutely need to know how to shoot and Partey isn't a very good shooter. Look at those winning clubs and their central midfielders usually are very lively, very involved in play and love to shoot. Look at Scholes, Lampard, Bruno, Gundogan vs players like Özil who doesn't dare to shoot anymore. I think that even Fred, McTominay or Elneny are better players than Partey because they dare to shoot and can shoot decently well and willing to run more.

 

[UnbiasedNeutral]

Also, a central midfielder absolutely need to know how to shoot and Partey isn't a very good shooter. Look at those winning clubs and their central midfielders usually are very lively, very involved in play and love to shoot. Look at Scholes, Lampard, Bruno, Gundogan vs players like Özil who doesn't dare to shoot anymore. I think that even Fred, McTominay or Elneny are better players than Partey because they dare to shoot and can shoot decently well and willing to run more.

Did you just say Fred can shoot? @UnitedBeard have a word please.

 

[Geofranco]

Pretty much useless player.

Quite slow, not enthusiastic enough. Poor at dribbling. Not involved in one-two because he doesn't run forward after passing. He's focused on passing only and doesn't try anything outrageous. It isn't a bad thing but you expect more. A lazy player who passes the ball whenever he gets it and then doesn't run much after passing. Basically, he was happy with his new contract at Arsenal and stopped trying. NOT AN ENGINE AT ALL.

Many players are better than him. Ceballos supposedly was only available at 25 mil is more technically gifted on the ball and tries harder. Now they have a Ceballos who is on loan and playing 1 in 2 games, disrupting team play and understanding because the line up keep changing every week.

Also, a central midfielder absolutely need to know how to shoot and Partey isn't a very good shooter. Look at those winning clubs and their central midfielders usually are very lively, very involved in play and love to shoot. Look at Scholes, Lampard, Bruno, Gundogan vs players like Özil who doesn't dare to shoot anymore. I think that even Fred, McTominay or Elneny are better players than Partey because they dare to shoot and can shoot decently well and willing to run more.

You guys really do deserve Ceballos, El-neny and Xhaka level players. Xhaka is a great shooter outside the box. All players with a pretty low ceiling. Maybe Partey did come here for the paycheck and chill vibes. Plus there is no way a rookie manager like Arteta would know how to manage a midfielder of his level. Players like Saka, Partey, Saliba, Tierney deserve a more experienced and talented manager than Arteta leading the way.

 

[hyruga2]

You guys really do deserve Ceballos, El-neny and X

Did you just say Fred can shoot? @UnitedBeard have a word please.

players. Xhaka is a great shooter outside the box. All players with a pretty low ceiling. Maybe Partey did come here for the paycheck and chill vibes. Plus there is no way a rookie manager like Arteta would know how to manage a midfielder of his level. Players like Saka, Partey, Saliba, Tierney deserve a more experienced and talented manager than Arteta leading the way.

haha you are right. Fred can't shoot that well but he's still better than Partey who just sits back and walk after passing.

I do not worry about Arteta because it's obvious he will go unless Arsenal win the Europa or qualify for Europe as of this season. His days in Arsenal are numbered. No point talking about him unless he doesn't get the sack after this season.

 

[Macho]

I see the club has rubbed off on him already. Think he's a class player just doing whatever he feels like now tbh.

 

[mpower2540]

Pretty much useless player.

Quite slow, not enthusiastic enough. Poor at dribbling. Not involved in one-two because he doesn't run forward after passing. He's focused on passing only and doesn't try anything outrageous. It isn't a bad thing but you expect more. A lazy player who passes the ball whenever he gets it and then doesn't run much after passing. Basically, he was happy with his new contract at Arsenal and stopped trying. NOT AN ENGINE AT ALL.

Many players are better than him. Ceballos supposedly was only available at 25 mil is more technically gifted on the ball and tries harder. Now they have a Ceballos who is on loan and playing 1 in 2 games, disrupting team play and understanding because the line up keep changing every week.

Also, a central midfielder absolutely need to know how to shoot and Partey isn't a very good shooter. Look at those winning clubs and their central midfielders usually are very lively, very involved in play and love to shoot. Look at Scholes, Lampard, Bruno, Gundogan vs players like Özil who doesn't dare to shoot anymore. I think that even Fred, McTominay or Elneny are better players than Partey because they dare to shoot and can shoot decently well and willing to run more.

He doesn’t run forward because he’s our only fixed CM in this system while Ceballos and Smith Rowe were free to float around. If he ran forward there’d be a gaping hole in midfield (something Ramsey used to get slaughtered for even when he had a CM partner).

Im pretty baffled that people thought he was poor yesterday, his job is to take the ball from the defender and move it to the attack and he did that, while winning the ball back on numerous occasions too. I still think people are actively looking for mistakes to jump on and say he’s ****.

The problem yesterday wasn’t Partey, we couldn’t sustain attacks or pressure and our offensive distances were miles apart.