Partey hangover for Arsenal after Villa slip-up

The Gunners lost more ground to Liverpool on Saturday. 

Arsenal's Thomas Partey has a shot blocked by Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez. Pic:Zac Goodwin/PA Wire.

ARSENAL 2-2 ASTON VILLA 

THOMAS PARTEY was the unfortunate fall guy for a result that leaves Arsenal struggling to maintain much hope of preventing leaders Liverpool from winning this season’s Premier League title. The Ghana central midfielder has had one of his best season’s since signing from Atletico Madrid for €50million in 2020. A midfielder, that is, until Arsenal go into injury crisis mode and manager Mikel Arteta sticks him at right-back.

Partey has played right back in six matches this season. Arsenal have conceded in all six matches, dropping 11 points out of 18 and winning just once, which was against bottom-of-the-table Southampton, at home. It is not just that Partey is not as good out of position, but that Arenal also lose one of their more dominant players. The combination is deadly, at least for Arsenal’s title hopes it now seems.

This time it was because William Saliba, undoubtedly one of the League’s best defenders, was out with a hamstring problem. Arteta chose to switch Jurrien Timber to cover for him and drag Partey back to fill in the right side of his defence.

Replays showed him out of his comfort zone for both Aston Villa goals as the visitors staged an unlikely comeback through Youri Tielemans and Ollie Watkins goals after Arsenal had shot into a deserved two-goal lead ten minutes into the second half.

Arteta has repeatedly stated he wants the 31-year-old to stay at Arsenal beyond this summer, when his contract expires. The word is, and not without reason, that he is more likely to move on, whether he and Arsenal are successful together or not.

Aware or otherwise of the flack coming his way from pundits and fans alike in the aftermath of this pivotal result, the significance of which was compounded by Liverpool’s injury-time win at Brentford, Partey was still man enough to front up and talk through the match afterwards.

Asked if he minded where he played, he answered: “I think the answer is clear but I’m in a team where we all play for each other. I’m very comfortable playing in every position, give my best for the team and that’s it.” 

He would not use Saliba’s absence and the injuries to Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Bukayo Saka, Ethan Nwaneri and Gabriel Jesus as an excuse either. He added: “No, we never gave any excuse. There is a lot of competition, we have a lot of players who can play in multiple positions and we have to continue helping each other, keep playing as a team and keep dominating games like these and then we will get our results.

“It’s frustrating and disappointing. But we know how hard it is to play against these teams in the Premier League. We know how intense it is, and we have to be focused 100 per cent but it’s football. We’ve been playing a lot of games, we’ve been dominating a lot of games and we have to continue like this.” 

Even watching Liverpool’s dramatic win, he insisted, had not put him or Arsenal out of their stride. He insisted: “I saw it after but every individual is free to watch games or focus on any game which is being played. But at the end of the day, we want to continue to dominate games and try to win our games. “I think there a lot of teams chasing the title and we have to focus on ourselves and win our games.” 

This match marked Arsenal’s sixth fixture in January. They have three to go as they host Dynamo Zagreb in the Champions League on Wednesday night, go to Wolves on Saturday and jet out to Spain to play Girona the following Tuesday.

Arteta highlighted afterwards the difference between his and Liverpool’s squad depth as a pointer towards why they are struggling to keep pace with Arne Slot’s side at the top and how he will not be able to rotate his squad in any meaningful way. Take a look at the line-ups below and see what little options he had among his subs.

The narrative could have been so different had they managed their lead created by goals from Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz better. Then again, they had chances to score a hatful more - an all too familiar analysis of Arsenal matches this season.

Martinelli, a player back close to his best form in recent weeks, had no complaints and promised the club’s supporters they will be ready for the challenges ahead. He said: “We're ready to go. We play for Arsenal, we are proud of ourselves and we want to play every game and win all of them. We can't choose the games. We are going to go for it. We're ready and we're going to go out to win the game.”

Arsenal: Raya 6; Partey 6, Timber 6, Gabriel 6, Lewis-Skelly 7; Rice 8, Merino 6, Odegaard 6; Martinelli 8 (Sterling 81), Havertz 7, Trossard 6. Subs: Neto, Tierney, Zinchenko, Kiwior, Kacurri, Jorginho, Butler-Oyedeji, Kabia.

Villa: Martinez 8, Cash 6, Konsa 6, Mings 6, Maatsen 5 (Digne 46), Onana 6 (Bogarde 37), Kamara 6, Rogers 6, Tielemans 7, Ramsey 6 (Bailey 84), Watkins 6 (Duran 80). Subs, Olsen, Gauci, Nedeljkovic, Buendia, Malen.

Ref: Chris Kavanagh 5 Att: 60,067