Thomas Partey

Yes definitely, from the little we saw from him he did make a good impact. His first thought when he gets the ball is to pass between the lines or progress the ball forward, something which we lacked immensely during that awful run. However He’s not played much football, so I’m not expecting an immediate impact, I’d have thought after 2/3 games he should be really making a difference to how we play, offensively and defensively. Our midfield is too easy to run through, so I hope that’s another thing he will look to fix

Wonder who he comes in for? Will Xhaka finally lose his regular place, or will partey fill in where ceballos and Elneny have played?

Xhaka has improved since Partey partnered Elneny in the United game. Would choose him over Elneny.

I think Arteta may well start Partey on the bench.

Will be Xhaka/Ceballos tonight most likely

Depending on how Ceballos does, I’d like to try him in CM with Partey for the foreseeable. Has been awful all season but was quality vs WBA. Those are the types of performances we need from him more often.

There is a silver lining to his absence in that we've had to find a system that works without him. He will improve our midfield immeasurably, but we're not so reliant on him as we would have been.

No need to rush Partey back straight into the Starting XI.

A couple of late appearances off the bench should be a good way to ease him back up to pace.

We are going to be very reliant on him.

We’ve played an awful Chelsea team and 2 clubs scrapping for PL survival at the bottom, one of which overran our MF for the majority of the game.

We should have enough to get by Palace and Newcastle without him but keeping him fit is extremely important if we want to climb the table or progress in the Europa.

Ideally we’d buy a new CM partner for him this window but doesn’t look like anybody decent will be coming in this month

Main thing is to keep in Europe, hope to win Europa, and work on the midfield for next year. Defense is set for a while.

he was brilliant vs Spurs

Well at least Arteta's not been dumb enough to try to start him this time.