Thomas Partey was absent once again last weekend when Arsenal faced Watford, and injury expert Ben Dinnery has analysed what’s going wrong for the midfielder.
The 28 year-old arrived from Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2020 and swiftly showed he would be an important player for the club, but it didn’t take long before injuries crept into his game.
Around a month after joining the club, he suffered a muscle injury, and was missing for four fixtures, and on his return against Tottenham, he suffered a hip injury which was set to rule him out for a further 10 matches. He got enjoy another four weeks of action before his hamstring sidelined him for a further three outings.
Dinnery now believes that the rigours of the Premier League’s playing style and congested fixture schedule has affected Partey, but didn’t rule out him overcoming those issues.
“Prior to him signing to Arsenal, his availability was around 94 per cent,” he told Football Insider correspondent Adam Williams.
“There was no indication that there were any red flags. What this probably highlights is the difference in intensity between the leagues.
“The Premier League is so unique. Players can struggle to adapt to the intensity and also how many games there are in succession.
“With Partey, it is a slight concern that he’s still really struggling. He has had six muscle concerns since he arrived at the club.
“Two of those resulted in more than a month on the sidelines and a third one was three weeks.
“There was also a high ankle sprain that put him out for a month as well. That just shows he needs to be managed.
“Arsenal aren’t involved in European football so there is plenty of opportunity to rest.
“So it is a slight worry but hopefully when he’s playing week in, week out at optimum levels, we’ll see those injury problems disappear.”
It has to be a major concern when one of your key players can only make it through six consecutive starts at a time, and only highlights the need for a strong squad of options available to cover for those absences, while Partey remains too good a player to cash-in on despite his struggles in the division.
Will the backroom team learn to adapt to protect out asset from his injury woes?
Patrick
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