The Gunners boss supports the 28-year-old midfielder’s initiative to take long-range shots after the 2-2 draw at Emirates
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta is confident midfielder Thomas Partey has the ability to shoot from distance after the team’s 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace in their Premier League fixture on Monday.
The Gunners took an early lead through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, only to concede twice in the second half, before salvaging a late draw thanks to second-half substitute Alexandre Lacazette.
During the game, Ghana international Partey, who partnered Martin Odegaard at the heart of the midfield, came close to scoring for the Gunners from his long-distance shots and Arteta feels he should continue trying but in the right areas.
“Well, today [Monday] with one of them he [Partey] was much closer than he’s been,” Arteta told the club’s official website.
“It’s something that we are obviously practicing with him to determine and to decide the areas where we are more likely to score a goal and when we don’t.
“He has the capacity to do that because he’s done it throughout his career and he is trying and he needs to keep trying, but in the right areas.”
Arteta, however, feels the level of his players dropped after they had taken the early lead and it allowed Palace to get back into the game.
“We managed to score the goal, and we were in control. And then our level dropped,” Arteta continued.
“We had no composure on the ball, we started to give the ball away too easily, we didn’t have any sequences in our passes, we wanted to attack in one or two passes and the distances were too big.
“I think we put the handbrake on a little bit. We started to defend something. We were not moving fluently enough and taking the right decisions, playing forward more and being more ambitious to score the second goal in that moment.”
Since joining Arsenal from Atletico Madrid at the start of last season, the Black Star is yet to find the back of the net for the Gunners.
Last season, he managed 24 appearances amounting to 1535 minutes while this season he has so far managed five appearances.
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