Thomas Partey injury unexpected stroke of luck as Arteta makes perfect Arsenal call vs Man Utd
It's getting to the point now where we're almost expecting late goals at the Emirates Stadium. Much to the chagrin of match report-writing journalists in the press box all three of Arsenal's home matches have featured goals inside the last 10 minutes this season. As Declan Rice steered in his 95th minute goal against Manchester United on Sunday, the ecstasy was undeniable, but with the 'never say die' attitude Mikel Arteta has instilled into his side, few could say they were surprised.
One thing that has been a shock this season has been to see Gabriel Magalhaes outside of the starting XI. Prior to this campaign the Brazilian had started 73 consecutive Premier League matches. Sunday marked his first one of this campaign though.
Some have suggested that this is due to the transfer situation revolving around the 25-year-old. While it's true that there was Saudi interest in him, Mikel Arteta never had any intention of letting Gabriel go.
Instead his absence from the starting line-up has been largely down to Arteta's attempts to incorporate Thomas Partey into his back four. It's a tactic that the Spaniard began flirting with towards the end of last season, but this time around it had developed into a full blown love affair.
Many believe that this was to accommodate for the absence of Oleksandr Zinchenko from the starting XI. The Ukrainian is so influential from the left, that it made sense to try and replicate that with a player, in Partey, who had a relatively similar skillset on the right. On paper it did at least.
In practice it hadn't really gone to plan. Partey had certainly done the inverting part to a decent level, but that came at the cost of a few of the automatisms Ben White and Bukayo Saka had built up down that right.
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