I am, while he looked better in the final game, I’m still convinced he’s off this summer. I’ll trust the club on this but my hunch is that he’s going to be sold after we managed to get a good season out of him.
“Managed to get a good season out of him” seems like odd phrasing.
It feels more appropriate to say that we managed to get a good season out of Xhaka, given his past with us. Partey however is a top class midfielder, we got the performances you can expect from a player of his class.
Ive criticised him towards the end of this season but he’d be a huge loss.
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If we’re selling him then I think its some sort of agreement between Arteta and the ownership that we would keep him for a year despite the allegations but then get rid the following summer.
I don’t see a compelling football-related reason to sell him, especially with Xhaka assumedly leaving.
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Yep selling Partey ain’t getting us any closer to bridging the gap on Man City.
We’re probably currently 2 top quality midfielders short of Man City at the moment, selling him simply means we’ll probably need to sign 3 top quality mids in the summer which is hard to imagine we’ll do.
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I should have been a bit clearer, they’ve managed him well to keep him fit all season. He had his best season for us and you’re right, he’s a quality footballer. It feels like the right time to find his successor and it would be better to have him around next season but…I can’t see it happening.
If he’s going then its cause of the allegations. Nothing else. No compelling reason to sell Partey otherwise; it’d significantly weaken our midfield without him. If he goes, then I see zero reason why we can’t get Rice & Caicedo.
Though that’s still collectively weaker than what we have now, as Xhaka’s also off.
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How do you find a buyer if the allegations are damaging though?
good point. I think there’s always a club who’s willing to take the risk. Most likely outside the EPL.
Could be something else though.
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So Caicedo is now linked with Chelsea? This is starting to remind me a lot of Bissouma. Watch people get pissed when he ends up someplace else and people start saying they beat us for his signature.
I still stand by my take that the guy is one of the alternatives to Rice. I feel there’s a lot of it speculation done from fanbases and even reporters, putting 2+2 together.
Personally, I feel the current Fresneda rumours are simply baseless and go off assumptions made from our interest in him in January. Same with Caicedo. Cancelo was probably offered to us by Mendes.
The only rumour I totally buy but as of right now is Rice. I don’t get the vibe the club is pursuing anything else at the minute. We’re known to be a one deal at a time club, and this is massive deal to work on and eventually pull off. I reckon all-hands are on deck for this and the club won’t proceed on other dealings until there is some clarity on if we’re signing Rice or not.
Caicedo been linked with Chelsea for a while, I think even in January too (when they initially backed out of Enzo).
Other than our rumoured bids in Jan i think they’ve been the other main club interested.
We can beat Chelsea to Caicedo in terms of a transfer fee, plus we can offer more money upfront, and we can offer a better opportunity as we can now offer CL football. If we are in for him, and we were in January, we can get him this summer IMO.
Personally, I think we are in for Caicedo still. I thought we would sign two midfielders, if we kept Partey and Xhaka. I now think there is a good chance we will sign three. Rice seems to be viewed as the replacement for Xhaka. Caicedo seems to be viewed as the long term replacement for Partey. I think the last couple of games have been telling, particularly against Wolves, with Partey starting at RB. I think Arteta may see his role evolving into a utility player, which would give us great squad depth.
Midfield is the standout part of the squad that needs the most improvement IMO, and it is also the area where there are a lot of very good players available this summer. Getting another top quality striker is going to be very difficult this summer. A new CB seems like a very strong possibility, but Arteta and Edu can have the biggest impact on our squad and chances of success next season, by significantly upgrading our midfielder in the transfer window.
Rice, Caicedo, and Mount as our three main targets would represent an excellent window.
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I have a hard time seeing Mount coming in unless ESR or Vieira leave.
I think you’re potentially right about Caicedo though. In a way, he could actually be the replacement for Tierney. We don’t really need another LB, what we need is another player who can do the Zinchenko role - play as a deep CM when we have the ball and a FB when we don’t. We can’t rely on Partey to do that right now because he’s an integral part of our midfield but if we bought Caicedo we would have a lot of options since both he and Partey can do it. Rice, Partey, and Caicedo could split two positions most of the time but with either Caicedo or Partey also logging some minutes as RB/CM in situations when Zinchenko wasn’t playing (probably Kiwior at LB instead).
I think this would make it a lot harder for other sides to plan against us tactically because this FB/CM player could now be on either side. Right now they can just plan from the start to play the ball into the space Zinchenko vacates and set up their team to maximize that ability. It would be good if we kept them guessing more about which side would be the weaker one defensively.
Ultimately, the alternatives to doing this are (a) buying somebody else who can play like Zinchenko, which is hard to find in an established player so might mean buying some speculative kid like Fresneda or (b) relying on either White or Tomiyasu to develop into a FB capable of inverting into midfield. That could happen over time but Arteta hasn’t really shown a lot of enthusiasm for experimenting with those players in that kind of role.
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That’s something we need to change. Reminds me of the Mudryk negotiations.
Tbf to them, they’ve been quick to identify alternatives the past 2 windows.
We signed Zinchenko within a week of losing out on Martinez to Man Utd.
Same with Mudryk, we moved on to Trossard pretty quickly.
Again, the same with Caicedo and Jorginho.
This why I don’t buy that we actually want to being everyone we may be “interested” in.
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Yes and in both cases, plan “B” turned out better than plan “A.” 
If Declan really is priority 1 for the club, no fucking about for a change, get the deal done quickly so that he is here for a full preseason.
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I actually think Martinez would have worked out better for us and I’m a big Zinchenko fan.
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I agree with that. I don’t think we ever looked as bad as United this past season so he wouldn’t have had as many comical moments.
Martinez better at defending, but not as good going forward, right?
I freely admit that my hatred for pretty much all things United clouds my judgement here. However, overall, the fallback plans for the team has worked out really well.
Yeah Zinchenko is definitely the better attacking player but I think the overall package of Martinez is that he is an excellent defender, versatile and also good with the ball at his feet. Probably offers us a lot more defensively
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