Thread by @LReyno1ds

The Thomas Partey discourse is swirling with heat but starved of clarity. Arsenal are being judged not just on what they did—but what others think they should’ve done.

Let’s unpack this—without outrage, but with precision. 🧵

First: Partey was not charged until today.
Suspending him before that would’ve opened Arsenal to legal recourse—from the player himself. No charges. No basis. No lawful precedent. Emotion doesn’t override process.

Second: Arsenal aren’t responsible for the three-year delay in police proceedings.
They don’t control the timeline of British law.
To conflate inaction with indifference is unfair—and dishonest.

Third: Public support from Arteta—comments like “we’re proud of him”—weren’t moral endorsements.
They were acknowledgements of a player under immense pressure, booed publicly, yet still performing.
Silence wasn’t an option. Nor was speculation.

The club is now accused of knowing and still playing him.
But knowing, not suggesting they did, is not proving.
And without charge—either from the law, the FA, or the Premier League—there was no firm ground to suspend. Just sand and sentiment.

Let’s be clear: there’s no consistent precedent in football for suspending a player without charge.
Even the Mason Greenwood case—cited as the benchmark—was fuelled by leaked media evidence, not just allegations.
It wasn’t due process. It was public fallout.

Where players have been suspended without charge, it’s usually:
— Internal misconduct (like Overmars)
— Rule breaches (like Joey Barton)
— Or public evidence too damning to ignore

In a the absence of these, clubs are flying blind—legally exposed, morally contested.

This is the uncomfortable truth:
If clubs suspend players over allegations alone, they open the door to career-impacting disruption on accusation, not evidence.
False claims would carry real power. Justice would be PR-led, not law-bound.

Arsenal’s responsibility isn’t to mimic other clubs’ reactions.
It’s to act within the framework of British law and footballing governance.
And until this week, neither gave them cause—or legal clearance—to suspend.

Now that charges are formal, the landscape changes.
But let’s not revise history to fit today’s emotions.
Arsenal operated inside the rules—rules that remain flawed, reactive, and full of ambiguity.
Blame the system. Not the silence.

If we want better accountability, we need better policy, not outrage.
We need footballing bodies to define thresholds—not Twitter threads.
Until then, clubs remain exposed: damned if they do, and sued if they don’t.

This isn’t a defence of Partey.
It’s a defence of proportion.
And in times like these, that’s what gets lost first.