Who is Thomas Partey? Strengths and weaknesses of Arsenal's elite midfield acquisition
A week ago, Arsenal had lodged a bid for Houssem Aouar. The Lyon star was courted by some of Europe's biggest clubs and it was Arsenal who were leading the race. Personal terms had supposedly been agreed, but then came the tough task of dealing with Lyon's Jean-Michel Aulas.
A notoriously difficult negotiator, Aulas recently confirmed that prized assets Aouar and Memphis Depay, the latter of whom had been linked with a move to Barcelona, would instead be remaining with the French side. Back to the drawing board for the Gunners? Hardly. One of their top midfield targets from earlier this year was Thomas Partey and while Arsenal sought to negotiate a fee with Atletico for the Ghana star, the LaLiga outfit were adament that the Premier League side would pay Partey's £45m release clause in full.
So while Arsenal decided to wait until deadline day to get the deal over the line, the north London giants finally added to their midfield with the capture of Partey. As far as transformative signings go, Partey is just that for Mikel Arteta's side. Dani Ceballos may have returned on loan for the season after a successful stint following his compatriot's appointment in December, but Arsenal remained weak in midfield.
That, though, is no longer the case. Partey is an extraordinary capture for Arsenal, and a real statement of intent by the Gunners. He's an improvement on the options at Arteta's disposal, at both winning possession and driving the team forward from midfield. An issue for the Gunners has been the lack of thrust from the middle of the park, with Arteta relying heavily on the wing-backs pushing on to stretch opponents.
Yet, when the wing-backs fail to have the desired effect from the right or left, then problems occur for Arsenal in the final third. Only West Brom (6.8) are averaging fewer shots per game than the Gunners (7.5) in the Premier League this season. Against Sheffield United on Sunday, they managed six shots in a narrow 2-1 win over the lowly Blades.
An additional body, and one who can break through staunch opposition midfields, would help alleviate the pressure on the wing-backs to stretch sides and present Arsenal with an additional route of attack. Indeed, since the start of the 2019/20 LaLiga season, 134 players have attempted 35 or more dribbles, and of those 134 players; Partey's dribble success rate (88.9%) puts him top.
It's this progressive approach with the ball at his feet in the middle of the park that has been found wanting for Arsenal on more than one occasion. On top of that, 33.5% of Partey's 1857 passes since the start of the 2019/20 LaLiga season have been forward passes, so this willingness to get the ball into the feet of his attacking teammates quickly goes against the common misconception that Partey is just a holding midfielder.
That being said, this is a quality to his game that he carries out to great effect. 2.5 tackles and 1.6 interceptions per 90 since the start of the 2019/20 LaLiga season points to his effectiveness off the ball and it's the two duties he can execute with aplomb that would enable Arteta to continue using a two-man midfield in a 3-4-3 setup, should he see fit.
Partey has the experience of playing in a two-man midfield under Diego Simeone, so playing in a similar midfield system under Arteta wouldn't be an alien experience for the Ghana star. However, the primary weakness to Partey's game remains his concentration. It's his sole statistically calculated WhoScored weakness and unsurprsingly so given no player has committed more errors leading to an opposition shot than the Partey (7) since the start of the 2019/20 LaLiga season.
Yet when weighing up the pros against the cons, the former heavily outweighs the latter. The fact of the matter is, Partey is a readymade star whose qualities suit the Premier League and would immediately propel Arsenal's midfield to the next level.
