‘HE WILL PLAY TOMORROW’: Arteta backed to unleash truly ‘unbelievable’ talent for Arsenal tomorrow
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been tipped to start Thomas Partey in Saturday’s Premier League meeting with Bournemouth.
Charles Watts, Goal.com’s Gunners correspondent, reckons the Ghana international will return to the XI even if Jorginho is fit.
Partey is back in action after a short spell on the sidelines due to a muscular problem.
The 29-year-old made a cameo appearance off the bench in the 1-0 win over Leicester City last week.
Partey then came on in the second half against Everton, where he completely changed the tempo of the game.
He also brought a lot of calm to his side and pretty much nothing passed through him.
Partey replaced Jorginho, who was struggling in the match. Mikel Arteta later confirmed he wasn’t feeling well.
‘Just didn’t look right’
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Watts claimed Partey could replace Jorginho against Bournemouth.
He then tipped the Italian to return in the starting XI for Arsenal’s Europa League trip to Sporting CP.
“We’ll have to wait to see what happens with Jorginho, who really struggled in the first half yesterday, and was replaced at half-time by Mikel Arteta,” he said.
“You can see something was up with Jorginho, it was really obvious. You see how frustrated he was getting with himself, he lost the ball a couple of times and his passing was poor. It just didn’t look right.
“Mikel said afterwards he hasn’t been feeling well at all and that’s why he took him off at half-time, and you could tell there was something just not quite right with him.
“Even when he’s not playing well, Jorginho’s, a very good passer. He doesn’t lose possession very often, but he was clearly off his game a little bit yesterday, but we’ll wait and see if he’s fit enough to feature at the weekend.
“Even if Jorginho is fit, I think Partey will be playing at the weekend. Then you’d bring Jorginho back into the side for next Thursday in the Europa League.”
Arteta has since confirmed that Jorginho is “fine”, but as Watts said, the Arsenal boss could yet make the switch in midfield.
Although Jorginho has deputised admirably, Partey is just “unbelievable” and takes the Gunners to another level on the pitch.
