What Ben White did to embarass Harry Maguire as Martin Odegaard makes Arsenal captaincy case

There were plenty of candidates for man of the match from Sunday's game at the Emirates - and we'll get to a few more of them in a bit more depth - but for the standout was Thomas Partey.

The Ghanaian doesn't tend to get as much praise as some of Arsenal's more eyecatching stars like Bukayo Saka or Emile Smith Rowe, but after being awarded player of the month for February it's plain to see that the work he's doing is not going unnoticed by the Gunners fans.

Cast your mind back to the start of December when many were beginning to question whether the 28-year-old merited a place in the starting XI amid a string of poor performances that he himself described as "4/10."

Since then the transformation in Partey's game has been mindblowing.

Of course the long-awaited goal was a high point, and as Mikel Arteta went on to admit after the game, the former Atletico Madrid man could even have had a hattrick, but it was his work at the base of the Arsenal midfield that was so exciting.

In midweek when doing punditry for Real Madrid's dramatic Champions League comeback win over PSG, Arsene Wenger described Karim Benzema 's greatest ability as being able to make the difficult look incomprehensibly simple, amd it's safe to say the same description can be applied to Partey right now.

The Ghanaian is Arsenal's Harry Houdini regularly navigating his way out of the seemingly inescapable situations he regularly finds himself in when playing as the Gunners' 'number six'.

If you look at other players playing in the league there are few whose role is as demanding as that of the 28-year-old. Fabinho at Liverpool is not tasked with the same responsibility of starting attacks from deep, while Rodri at Manchester City is not asked to do