Arsenal went into the international break under a cloud for two reasons.
Not only were they just hammered 3-0 by Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium last week, but Thomas Partey, their £45 million signing last month, came off injured at half-time.
The Ghana midfielder was omitted from his national team’s squad during the two-week break as a consequence and Gunners boss Mikel Arteta confirmed that the player would undergo a scan on the Monday, but there hasn’t been a lot of information about the problem since.
But Goal journalist Charles Watt, who covers Arsenal, revealed good news on his YouTube channel on Friday.
Watt claimed he has heard that Partey is ‘feeling pretty confident’ that it is only a minor problem and that the player himself is hoping to be fit again ‘pretty soon’.
He said: “I spoke to someone that I know [who is] close to the player and he said that Partey was feeling pretty confident that it wasn’t going to be too bad an injury. I couldn’t get a timescale on exactly when he was going to be back, but he was hoping he would be back pretty soon.”
The sooner Partey is back, the better.
Arsenal have a very experienced head in Granit Xhaka who can cover the former Atletico Madrid midfielder.
But they have some tricky games on the horizon – away to Leeds and Tottenham Hotspur over the next three weeks – and good results in both games are a lot more probable with somebody like Partey available to them.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
