Zubimendi vs Partey: is Arsenal's midfield actually worse than it was, or is the Bournemouth hangover doing the thinking?

Three months ago Martin Zubimendi was being discussed as Arsenal's signing of the season. He'd scored a brace against Nottingham Forest in September, won the Premier League Goal of the Month award, and was being held up as evidence that Arteta had finally found the midfield anchor his system had been waiting for since Thomas Partey's injury-plagued decline.

By Saturday afternoon, after a 76% pass accuracy and a horror show at the back post for Alex Scott's winner, the same corners of the internet that had been singing his name were calling him a downgrade on a player Arsenal replaced two years ago. Football takes no prisoners in the last few games of a title race, but the Zubimendi-versus-Partey debate deserves a more honest treatment than the Bournemouth result has given it.

Thomas Partey joined Arsenal in October 2020 for £45 million, the most expensive Ghanaian player in history at the time, with the profile of a generational defensive midfielder. His best season at the club was 2022-23, when he made 33 league appearances, scored three times including the Goal of the Season against Spurs, and was the anchor of the midfield that took Arsenal to within five points of a first title in 19 years.

At his peak, Partey was a genuinely elite six. He had physical dominance that very few players in the Premier League could match, could carry the ball at pace from deep, won duels that looked impossible and covered a lot of grounds. Arteta built the 2022-23 squad specifically around what Partey could do in the number six role, and it nearly won the title.

What he couldn't do was stay fit. Across five seasons at Arsenal, Partey made 167 appearances in all competitions. That sounds reasonable until you account for the 38-game league seasons, the cup runs and the Champions League campaigns he was supposed to be anchoring.

In 2021-22 he played 24 league games. In 2023-24, the season the debate about his future became unmanageable, he played just 16. The cumulative injury record was the defining feature of Partey's career.

Arsenal fans who are comparing Zubimendi unfavourably to Partey are, whether they acknowledge it or not, comparing him to the 2022-23 version of Partey, which was one of the best single-season performances in the Premier League's recent history from that position. That player hasn't existed consistently since.

Zubimendi came from Real Sociedad in July 2025 for £55.8 million on a contract until 2030. He made his debut in the opening-day win against Manchester United, scored a brace against Forest in September that won him Goal of the Month.

He has already played over 1,000 minutes more in the Premier League this season than Partey and Jorginho played combined in 2023-24. Availability is not everything. But it is the thing Partey couldn't give Arsenal when it mattered most.

The differences in profile are real and worth being precise about. Partey was a more powerful ball-carrier, with greater physicality in duels and a direct aggression in transition that Zubimendi doesn't replicate. When Partey drove from deep with the ball, he broke defensive lines through force as much as intelligence. Zubimendi's game is based on positioning, angles and passing rather than physical imposition.

He reads the game earlier, receives in tighter spaces and plays the ball faster, but he doesn't impose himself on matches the way Partey did when fit and confident.

Against a high press like Bournemouth's, that difference matters a lot. What the Cherries did on Saturday was specifically target Zubimendi's less aggressive profile, forcing him into quick decisions in small spaces under physical duress, and he didn't cope with it well.

That's a real criticism, but it is not the same as calling him a downgrade.

The other thing that the Partey-Zubimendi comparison consistently ignores is the squad context around each player. In 2022-23, Arsenal had Granit Xhaka alongside Partey in midfield, a player who connected Partey's defensive work to the attack with a specific passing range and set-piece quality that the current side still doesn't fully have. Martin Odegaard was also running at his absolute best. The midfield cohesion of that squad was built over two full seasons together, with Arteta having clear roles for each player that the others understood.

This season's midfield, with Zubimendi and Rice as the double pivot and the likes of Havertz operating as the free eight, is still being figured out. Havertz was below his best on Saturday. When you lose Odegaard for long stretches, as Arsenal have, the entire creative load shifts in ways that expose a number six's limitations, whoever he is.

Partey left Arsenal in the summer of 2025 on a free transfer to Villarreal, after the expiration of his contract. He was 32 and had made 16 league appearances the previous season. Zubimendi, at 27, has made 32 league starts in his debut campaign in the Premier League, scored five times, and won the Euro 2024 with Spain.

The version of Partey that Arsenal fans are invoking when they say Zubimendi is a downgrade is the version that played 33 league games in 2022-23 and was arguably the best defensive midfielder in England that season. That player was exceptional. He was also, for the most part of the preceding and following seasons, unavailable.