Mikel Arteta made quite a few changes to his side on Wednesday night. Big stars like Kai Havertz, Declan Rice, Jurrien Timber and William Saliba started on the bench, while David Raya missed the game due to injury.
That definitely weakened Arsenal, and they conceded after 28 minutes. Arnaut Danjuma, who used to play for Tottenham Hotspur, opened the scoring at the Estadi Montilivi.
However, Jorginho converted his penalty and Ethan Nwaneri then scored a stunner to turn things around for the Gunners before half-time. That was enough to win the game.
Arnaut Danjuma says Girona targeted Arsenal star Thomas Partey
Arsenal were nowhere near their best against Girona.
The Gunners dictated large parts of the game, but they were sloppy at times and could’ve easily conceded more than the one goal that they did.
Danjuma’s goal was a really poor one to concede.
The attacker found space in behind Thomas Partey, and he smashed the ball past Neto into the back of the net after seeing that the Brazilian was out of position.
After the game, Danjuma was asked about his goal, and the Dutchman claimed that his side had worked on getting in behind Partey because they knew he would leave space there.
He told CBS Sports: “Obviously, we like to prepare the game.
“It’s funny because we’ve been revising the goal that I scored because we knew that Thomas Partey is normally a midfielder, so there will be a lot of space on his back.
“I think I utilised it pretty well. I got a phenomenal pass from our centre-back. So it’s funny that we trained on it and it worked very well.”
Arsenal will soon have a solution to their Thomas Partey problem
Partey is one of the best midfielders in the Premier League when he is playing as a number six.
The Ghana international has produced several world-class performances for the Gunners in that position, and he is almost always reliable there.
However, injury issues have forced Arteta to deploy Partey at right-back at times this season, and although he has worked really hard there, he has made a few mistakes.
Thankfully for Arsenal, Partey’s time at right-back will soon come to an end because Ben White is closing in on a return to full fitness.
The Englishman has been out of action for over two months now, but he is back on the grass and should return to the first team in the coming weeks.
Partey can then return to his natural position in the middle of the park.
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