I would be surprised if the fee for this transfer is as high as we’d like. I’d expect us to get between £15m-£20m, and given Edu’s negotiation style, it’s unlikely he will try to get much higher.
The fact that Ornstein and Fab have caught wind of this rumour indicates to me that Arsenal really wants him gone. Both are the most prominent transfer news breakers and they’ve both received identical information.
Let’s be real on the pitch his exit absolutely no good for the club, no way it makes us stronger next season.
If you don’t like him due to off field allegations then completely understandable.
He was one of our best players last season despite the last few games.
Selling Partey and Xhaka and replacing them with Rice and Caicedo would be an upgrade but still leaves us with a lack of depth.
Unless we get more than 50m we should keep him.
Massive loss. No footballing sense in this and would indicate the player probably wants the hell out of the country due to the allegations. The only positive we can get out of this, and it’s barely one, is enticing a big offer from Saudi.
If we’re selling to a normal club then I absolutely agree. If we’re selling to Saudi Arabia then who knows. Partey should be worth at least as much as Koulibaly to the Saudis. Partey is probably less famous but a much better footballer on current level.
Let’s see what the squad looks like after the window. I trust Arteta’s judgement fully as someone who signed and coached Partey throughout his Arsenal spell. Arteta knows his system and knows what pieces he wants
Rice is objectively performing near or at Partey’s level already and he has plenty of scope to improve in Arteta’s system, certainly I believe longer term thinking has gone into this one and that the right move. I honestly think we saw Partey’s best level and the club aren’t banking on him to age well, the no sense in tying him to a big contact for another season or two of hopeful high level play before rapid decline. I think alot of Arsenal overrate his body of work this season too, imo
I don’t think the first XI is affect by his loss tbh, our quality depth/rotation takes a hit but as said above let see what we look like by the end of the window before judging if we’re weaker
That would be absolute garbage money for one or Europe’s very best.
He can’t be accepting that
Now the Caicedo links, alongside Rice, are making much much more sense.
Now we really need to get Caicedo if Partey is on his way out.
No way I’d be happy with Lavia (don’t know much about him tbh, could be a beast, could be a new Lokonga as far as I’m concerned).
Rice, Caicedo, Havertz and Lavia for Partey, Xhaka and Lokonga I can get behind.
It’s an awful lot of disruption to a balanced midfield though.
Very clear from this that Partey himself wants to go too which makes it more understandable.
Too much noise around his name in England. Even if he was deemed innocent of all the accusations the public outlook of him changed in the country. The boos were quite loud in away games. I can only imagine how his personal life changed from this.
I think a lot of the criticism that came his way was very much amplified by the accusations made last year. People were looking for an excuse to shit on hin and you saw how easy it was to dismiss his world class form before April.
I understand your point. Granit Xhaka had his best season but, there have been times when his limitations were evident. There will certainly be a void to fill leadership-wise as that on-pitch voice isn’t easily replaceable.
Can’t even be arsed, hate this window bar the timber rumours.
He’s never been noted for being a leading personality despite being a physical powerhouse too. He doesn’t strike me as someone who could brush the personal stuff off when it’s amplified to this degree as it has been over the last year. And to be fair, I doubt many people could.
It was gonna happen eventually, I expected it next summer but it is what it is.
Al Nassr, Al Ahli and Al Khaleej mentioned.
They’re all the public investment fund, so one being interested is surely all of them being interested.
Ronaldo and Benzema are monster signings, but attracting the likes on Neves, Silva and possibly Partey in their peaks marks huge coups for the league. Son and Gundogan targeted too.
Unless we are satisfied to be #2 and being side kick of City, having Xhaka/Rice and Partey is not good enough to handle City.
Did you guys watch the City Inter game? How Inter deal with City (yeah, they lost), should be the way we build our defensive midfield. Speed and coverage.
Partey is good, but he cannot play that game anymore.
We definitely need some younger and fresher legs for #6 and #8.
If the transition is inevitable, why not just do it now but delay for another year or two?
Partey won’t get any better if we are playing the game in a fast(er) tempo. We will be lucky if he could slow down his aging and deteriorating speed.
I personally don’t see it like that. I don’t think you can now differentiate between business decisions and footballing decisions, they are one and the same now. Even with the money available at our disposal we cannot allow a player with Partey’s experience and quality to leave for either next to nothing or on a free. If the club and/or player have indicated that they are not looking to extend his deal, with only 2 years left, now is the time to sell to extract maximum value from the player.
Without knowing the business we are going to do over the summer, it is also impossible to say whether it is one step forward and two steps back. Rice, if signed, and when used as a DM, will be an upgrade on Partey IMO. Plus he has the potential to get even better over the next 4-5 years.
Personally I would be up for trying to keep Partey, but I want Rice AND Caicedo more than anything. So, personally I would be willing to allow Partey to leave, especially if we could get good money for him, and providing we went back in for Caicedo and signed him up.
The difficulty we have is we can’t assess the state of the team, until the window slams shut. But saying all that, I still have full confidence in Arteta and Edu and I’m very impressed at how we seem to be going about our business. That needs to translate quickly into signings though, especially Rice.
That’s all well and good until you consider both Xhaka and Partey want the exit themselves. There’s no point keeping players that don’t really wanna be here.
Our players aren’t “kids” anymore. Most of them have 5-6 years of years of experience under them in various situations. Title charges, titles wins, cup wins, relegation fights, actual relegations, promotions, etc.
It’s a big opportunity for the new leaders of Arsenal to step up now.