Arsenal journalist James McNicholas has shared some details on Atletico Madrid’s reaction to Arsenal’s move for Thomas Partey.
This comes after McNicholas recently made a guest appearance on The Athletic’s Ornstein & Chapman Podcast where he spoke about a number of topics concerning the north London club.
Whilst discussing the financial side of Arsenal’s deal for Partey, McNicholas had this to say on Atletico’s reaction to the club paying Partey’s release clause.
He said: “They were less than pleased, and of course, they can’t pretend they didn’t know about Arsenal’s interest in Partey. Like I said, they attempted to negotiate a deal for him earlier in the window and the clubs were in dialogue over Lucas Torreira, but they were not happy at all with the manner in which Arsenal conducted this deal.
“Formally, Arsenal are only obliged to go to La Liga, rather than Atletico to inform them that they’re paying [Partey’s release clause]. The message came from La Liga to Atletico, that Arsenal had triggered a clause with minutes to spare in the transfer window.
“I think they were affronted that Arsenal did not approach them directly, did not come through the front door. For their part, Arsenal will say, ‘well, look, we had an hour left in the window. We’re only legally obliged to do this, and we needed to get that deal done. Our emphasis and our efforts and our energy had to just be on being pragmatic. It was not [the] time for diplomacy,’ but it didn’t go down too well in Madrid, I think it’s fair to say.”
Arsenal signed the midfielder on a long-term deal after paying his €50 million (£45.3 million) release clause.
Do you think Arsenal behaved appropriately in their move to sign Partey?
Yes
No
After working his way through the youth system at Atletico, the midfielder made his senior debut for the Spanish club back in April 2016 in Atletico’s 2-1 defeat to Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-final first leg.
Overall, the 27-year-old, who is currently valued at £36 million, made a total of 188 appearances for Diego Simeone’s side in which he managed to score 16 goals and provide 12 assists along the way.
TIF Thoughts…
Taking into consideration what McNicholas has said on the matter, Arsenal didn’t really do anything wrong in our view apart from maybe leaving it a bit late to sign Partey and not approach Atletico directly about it.
If Atletico are not happy with the way in which Arsenal went about trying to sign Partey, they will just have to accept it and move on.