Ahead of Man Utd vs Arsenal this weekend, live on Sky Sports, Thomas Partey sat down with Patrick Davison to discuss his Deadline Day move to Arsenal and why he wants to be like Yaya Toure and Michael Essien.
Partey was a long-rumoured target for Arsenal and despite the chance for a deal this summer appearing to have come and gone, the move was back on as we headed deep into Deadline Day.
With a plethora of Partey-based puns at their disposal, the Gunners soon announced the Ghanaian’s arrival from Atlético Madrid late in the evening, although Partey woke up with little knowledge of any deal in the works.
“It was my first time [moving on Deadline Day], I’d never had that before,” he toldSky Sports’.
“I wasn’t thinking of anything [about a move], I was talking to a friend that I train with to go and train in the morning, then my agent phoned me and said ‘we have to go to this place to sign this paper in case we have to sign some papers for you’.
“So we did that and since we left in the morning, we could not go back home. We went to a restaurant to eat and the chef said ‘don’t leave us today’. I replied ‘what do you mean?’ and he said today was the Deadline Day and not to leave. I think my agent knew something about that, and he said ‘nothing will happen, don’t worry’.
“From there, I think they spoke to Edu, and he said we had to do this today. I was like ‘how are we going to do this today?’ and then we had to go and do medicals and whatever we had to do.
“That’s how everything happened and after everything was done at about 12.30am, my brothers were home and said ‘what’s going on?’ because no one knew anything. I left home early in the morning and I went back home that late with no news until around 1am when everything was OK then the news came out.