![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ca5b1451-190b-4f68-922a-b275419c1895.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPartey is back in north London a month after his appearance at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court on August 5 \u2013 where he was charged with five counts of rape against two women as well as a charge of sexual assault against a third woman. He is due to appear at the Old Bailey on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The alleged offences took place between 2021 and 2022 when he played for Arsenal. Partey\u2019s lawyer Jenny Wiltshire previously said he \u201cdenies all the charges against him\u201d and added that he welcomes \u201cthe opportunity to finally clear his name.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ghana international Partey was not asked to enter any pleas and was subsequently granted conditional bail on August 5 and two days later signed for Villarreal.<\/p>\n
The Spanish team were then drawn away to Arsenal\u2019s north London rivals Tottenham and Partey is due to appear at the Old Bailey the morning after the Champions League fixture, which forced Marcelino to discuss the topic at length on the eve of the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am totally convinced that he is mentally prepared and technically prepared to play tomorrow night,\u201d Marcelino insisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure he will be ready. We are very happy Thomas is with us for his football capacity, football ability and his presence as a human.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a great player with a lot of experience. He has played for a lot of top clubs. We know he has a great level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he will get back to a top level. I am very happy he is with us in the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pressed further on if he had spoken to Partey about the level of hostility he might expect on Tuesday night, Marcelino snapped: \u201cWe\u2019re interpreting stuff about and talking about a player that could be totally innocent.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Former Arsenal midfielder Thomas Partey<\/p>\n
Bukayo Saka has \u2018a lot of things to go through\u2019 before return, says Mikel Arteta <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing a game of football tomorrow where the important thing is football. This is where football was invented after all. Do you understand me? Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marcelino had already declined to reveal if Partey would be part of the squad, but pressed again at the end of an intense media session in London, the Villarreal chief bemoaned the discourse around the 32-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is with the group, he is available and tomorrow if nothing happens to a player in terms of fitness, he will be with all of us,\u201d Marcelino added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are talking more about Thomas than the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Villarreal defender Juan Foyth was also quizzed on Partey.<\/p>\n
The former Tottenham centre-back said: \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t spoke with him yet, but of course he played in Arsenal so the atmosphere will be against him, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Partey is back in north London a month after his appearance at Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court on August 5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,132,3613],"class_list":{"0":"post-67266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tottenham-hotspur"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}