Can we do this every international break?

What’s everyone’s take on Partey moving forward?

He’s like the ice cream machine at McDonald’s. When it’s working it’s the best thing there but it only works like 37% of the time.

With his abysmal injury record with us, and talk that he’s growing impatient with lack of game time, do we let him go in January and bring in a replacement? And if so who is that replacement?

Rice is starting to play more like Partey with his broadening passing range, playing those line splitting passes from deep that more often than not result in a chance so I’m not worried about us not having that type of player anymore, but is there another holding midfielder out there who can do the same job?

Some points I took from last night:

1. Trossard is most effective as a super sub. He’s absolutely lethal coming on and running and driving against leggy and tiring defences. He just doesn’t seem to have that same destructive capability when starting.

2a) As much as I love Jorginho, he can’t start games anymore when we have other options. He’s a great option when we’re defending a narrow lead and need to see a game out and take the sting out of the opposition attack. But when we need to attack he’s just too slow and safe. Always slowing down our attack and passing backwards whereas Partey makes those risky, line splitting passes that allow our forward players to create chances.

2b) Havertz, despite only playing 12 minutes, won more aerial duels than any other Arsenal player. Love him or hate him at the moment, he brings a dimension to our midfield that is missing without Partey. Our starting midfield should either be Rice/Havertz/Ødegaard or Partey/Rice/Ødegaard. We’re just so much better going forward as opposed to when Jorginho starts.

3. I think Zinchenko and Tomiyasu need to be rotated more often based on the opponents we face, at least until Timber is fit. Zinchenko does a lot for our attack in the early stages of matches, but is often a defensive liability. I think he’s good against sides that we can expect to limit to few chances over 90 mins but Tomi is that guy when were expected to do more defensive work. He also adds much more of an aerial presence across all areas of the pitch.

4. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Rammers start against Sevilla. As confident and assured as Raya looked in his first couple of games, that’s probably 3 or 4 poor performances on the spin from him and you can see in his face he’s starting to look short on confidence. His passing might be ridiculous but we cant sacrifice stability in between the posts for it.

5. Declan Rice is world class.