Thomas Partey’s transfer fee has piled up pressure on the Arsenal midfielder, manager Mikel Arteta has said.
Partey, 27, completed a £45m deal from Atletico Madrid to the Gunners in October 2020 in a high-profile move.
However, the Ghana deputy captain has struggled with a string of injuries conspiring against him to hold down a regular place in the team.
Partey was widely tipped to be the man to turn around at the Emirates stadium but that is far from being accomplished with a number of recurrent setbacks.
And Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has revealed the high transfer fee for the Ghanaian has added up to the pressure on the midfield supremo.
Asked about Partey and the expectation that surrounds him as a big-money signing, Arteta replied: “He knows how much he cost and that adds a bit of pressure.
“When you are not able to play you want to hurry up and do everything quicker and show everybody how good you are and have a big impact on the team.”
“That creates some anxiety for sure. Then the physical aspect, when you look at the outputs he needs to put in when he was playing in Spain or now, are pretty different.”
“Last time we gave him more time to recover and he came back in good shape, but he was not fit enough to sustain that for 90 minutes.”
“That is why we kept subbing him and trying to protect him. I think he has played 90 only once since coming back from injury.”
“Now we have to protect him, make sure that he is fit and ready to come back as soon as possible – but knowing that we need the player long term as well.”
Partey is currently sidelined with a muscular injury, and Arteta continued: “Hopefully we can still see Thomas back and playing at the level he can do”.
