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Thomas Partey had one of the most eventful Thursdays ever, having started the day in Cameroon before ending it by getting sent off in London.
Partey had been at the Africa Cup Of Nations with Ghana, who were knocked out of the competition at the group stage following a 1-0 loss to Morocco on Monday.
The former Atletico Madrid midfielder jumped on a plane early on yesterday and travelled to England, arriving at Heathrow airport around Midday.
He then made his way to the team hotel and was named in the Arsenal squad for the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg against Liverpool at the Emirates.
But Partey's cameo proved to be utterly disastrous. He entered the fray as a substitute in the 74th minute, was booked twice and therefore sent off in a hectic 15 minutes.
Partey didn't miss a single Premier League game while he was away at the AFCON but will now miss the visit of Burnley on Sunday following his daft dismissal.
His red card was the 14th under Mikel Arteta and came as a result of a late and dangerous challenge on Fabinho, who had beat Partey to the ball.
Asked if he regretted thrusting Partey into the action after the game, Arteta replied: "Well I regret that I cannot use him now, but he made the effort to come and we had to play."
"He hasn't had one single training session, Martin [Odegaard] as well, Laca [Lacazette] had a yellow card," he claimed.
"We had to make a decision and we had to use him."
Ahead of the 2-0 defeat, Arteta had praised Partey's commitment for getting back to London for the fixture.
The Gunners had Granit Xhaka sent off in the first leg at Anfield and Partey, like his teammate, felt the need to apologise to the fans on social media.
Taking to Instagram, he wrote: "I am responsible for anything that happened and will take all the critiques. I should be more intelligent not to get in a challenge already booked but this is my personality, I like to fight for every ball.
"I love this club and I love my country even though things sometimes don’t happen how I wanted, I would continue to work harder and make things right.
"I came back with the mentality to make myself available for team to get to the final but it did not happen as planned. I will continue to give my all when am on the field of play because this is my life and this is what i chose to do.
"I am not happy with all that happened yesterday and at the afcon but I understand only with hard work things will change so I will continue to work hard to change this. Thanks."
Topics: Arsenal, Africa Cup Of Nations
Josh Lawless