Thomas Partey explains why he didn’t take off his shirt to pay tribute to Christian Atsu

Partey said he was not afraid of being booked, but that the circumstances prevented him from taking off his shirt and showing a tribute to late teammate Christian Atsu.

Partey scored the first goal to inspire Arsenal to come back from a two-goal deficit to win 3-2. He recovered the ball for a quick restart, but in the process, he lifted his shirt up to show off the inscription ‘Rest In Peace Christian Atsu’ on his inner, but quickly rolled it down.

Some Ghanaians on social media slammed him for not paying a proper tribute to his former teammate when he scored.

In an interview with SuperSports, Partey explained that he did not want to show the tribute message because Arsenal were losing at the time, and that he wanted to clean his face after scoring before the message appeared.

“I had the shirt on. The day before the game, I called the kit man to print it for me, begging him to do it for me. I just wanted to wear it. And when I scored I didn’t want to show it because I knew it was not the right time. We were losing 2-1 and we had to win the game. We believed he could win. I believed we were going to win the game so we had to take the ball quickly and go. So I was just going to clean my face and I had that under and it showed,” he said.

Reacting to how people wrongly perceived his celebration, he explained that the situation could not allow him to pay the tribute as he wished.

“People will misunderstand that I didn’t want to show or I was scared of getting a card or anything but that was not the thinking I had at that time. I would have shown if we were winning 1-0, so it’s just the situation.”

Thomas Partey took off his shirt and paid the tribute at full-time while celebrating the incredible comeback victory.