Arsenal: Full-priced Thomas Partey still a bonafide bargain

Arsenal is inching their way closer to Thomas Partey, but even if they have to pay the full price, he’s still a bargain worth paying for.

Arsenal is wasting no time trying to lock down Thomas Partey. But if you follow the rumors, you’d be disappointed that it hasn’t happened yet. Simply because according to the reports, we’ve now had two offers rebuffed.

The first offer was paying half of Partey’s release clause plus offering Matteo Guendouzi, but Atletico said no pretty quickly. It seems as though there was a second, nonspecific offer that was also rejected.

Which is all leading to something that is normally terrifying, but isn’t—we will have to pay the full release clause of £45m in order to secure the services of Thomas Partey. Which, like I said, is not at all terrifying.

Because unlike normal asking prices, this one is completely reasonable and in no way not worth it. Honestly, when we all found out about that release clause, I think it’s safe to say we were feeling pretty good.

Think about it, if I asked you how much you’d be happy with the club spending to fix this midfield, you’d probably say something in the £100m range. I’m not saying that Partey fixes everything for just £45m, but he isn’t far from that honor, now is he?

If we can get Dani Ceballos on another year loan, which it’s looking like we might, add that to spending the full price on Thomas Partey and maintaining Granit Xhaka and we’ve got a midfield three that checks all the boxes—defensive mobility, athleticism, positional awareness, possession control, creativity, attacking wherewithal.

It’s everything.

All you’d need from there is to fill in a few pieces. Maybe you don’t sell Lucas Torreira and keep him as a rotational options, then maybe you add another young midfielder with the hopes of making him a rotational option.

Five midfielders to fill out a midfield two or three is a good place to be and conceivably, it could all be done for just what it would cost to buy Thomas Partey and whatever you’d want to spend to fill out two rotational options, if that includes Torreira or not.

Hopefully, it’s just a matter of time. We don’t have to pay any more than that release clause, so let’s just hope that these other unsuccessful deals are just preliminary, probing offers.