Chelsea vs Arsenal preview: How to watch, top four, prediction, lineups, live stream

Arsenal Team News vs Chelsea – Thomas Partey to Miss Rest of Season

When the club didn’t offer a date on Thomas Partey’s injury recovery it gave a strong enough hint that his season was over. Speaking ahead of the Southampton game, Arteta said as much.

"“The news that we got after having another assessment is not great,” he said. “It’s not looking very positive for his availability this season, but we’ll have to wait and see. He’s trying to get back as quick as possible but at the moment we are not very optimistic about it.”"

Unless this is one of his more outlandish mind games, it’s curtains for our Ghanaian this season.

Someone who it was initially predicted would be back in time for this game was Takehiro Tomiyasu. Arteta mentioned that he would return to full training after the Southampton game, but there has been no word of his return yet and given the length of time he’s been out it’s unlikely he’ll be thrown back into the deep end.

Other than that it’s still Kieran Tierney out, with more uncertainty over Alexandre Lacazette who the manager said was still recovering from Covid-19, which kept him out of the Saint defeat. It’s touch and go for him.

Chelsea look set to be without Mateo Kovacic for Wednesday as he limped off from their 2-0 FA Cup semi-final win over Crystal Palace, and he will join Ross Barkley who was also absent from the squad.

Calum Hudson-Odoi and Ben Chilwell remain long-term absentees.

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