Again misses the point, it doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Partey or a player in the style of Partey the fact is that when we can’t get the ball forward from the back in a timely enough fashion it gives opposition players time to get back. We can complain about teams doing the deep block but the real problem is we lack the players in central midfield who can both protect the defence and stretch the midfield.

Rice is of course not singularly responsible for this, when you have a player like Havertz who is simply not contributing enough to the attacking dimension of the game as well as not dropping deep to receive the ball (even Xhaka at his worst did this) it’s simply taking too long for the ball to get into the final third, and there are bodies back to block shots.
It explains why we get more penalties either from bringing players down in the box or handballs, we have players like Jesus, Martinelli, Saka and Odegaard who got goals and made goals last season as a result of having space to operate in which we no longer have…because by the time they are getting the ball…the opposition is in place to set itself. And then Arteta decides to address this by overcommitting (especially at home) by pushing the defence up and using Havertz/Vieira and Odegaard to press the team in their own third…and they are often breaking through the press with long balls to pace merchants.

Away from home where we do have to soak up pressure, it does help to have Rice…he’s very good at sitting in front of the defence and breaking things up, but without the players to take it forward and execute a break it’s all for nothing rather