Arteta will grill Partey over pre-goal walk-off

MIKEL ARTETA will hold talks with Thomas Partey after the Arsenal midfielder’s costly North London derby walk off. The Gunners’ summer signing, who made his first appearance since November 8 after recovering from a thigh injury, is facing another spell on the sidelines after suffering a recurrence of the problem. But questions were asked of Partey after he walked off the pitch, leaving Arsenal wide open to a devastating Tottenham counterattack that Harry Kane finished to score the hosts’ second. Graeme Souness questioned Partey’s decision to turn his back on the game and walk towards the bench in the Sky Sports studio at half-time, insisting he should have stayed on the pitch despite his injury. Indeed, Arteta pushed Partey back on to the pitch as Spurs broke — only for it to become clear the Ghanaian was in too much pain to run. And when asked about the incident after the game, Arteta said: ‘I was trying to push him back on to the pitch. I don’t think he realised the gravity of the situation when he left, but that was probably because he was in a lot of pain. ‘There’s nothing we can do to resolve that. It happened so quickly. I think it was a four versus three situation for us and suddenly they were coming and Thomas was walking to me. I wanted him on the pitch doing whatever he could for the team in that situation. I haven’t spoken to him so I don’t know exactly how it happened and whether he felt something really serious. We will look at it and then we will talk about it.’ On the injury itself, Arteta said: ‘It is in the same area, unfortunately. We don’t know how bad it is. He will have an MRI scan.’ Arsenal have scored just two goals in their last seven top-flight games, and one of those was a penalty. On his team’s struggles in front of goal, Arteta added: ‘The fight, the spirit and the way they played in this stadium is to be applauded. But it is not enough to win football matches because we are not scoring goals. ‘We had a lot of the ball, a lot of opportunities, but we didn’t have the end product. All the stats are in our favour but the game is about putting the ball in the goal. ‘How do we turn this run of results round? Score more goals. It’s very simple. We need to put the ball in the net, urgently.’ Wants talks: Arteta GETTY IMAGES

GUNNERS FALL FLAT...

As the match stats show, Arsenal dominated but didn’t take their chances: