A thiophene bearing a cyclopropyl ketone group at C2 was successfully employed in palladium-catalysed direct arylation. The reaction proceeds regioselectively at C5 without decomposition of the cyclopropyl ketone substituent. These couplings were performed employing as little as 0.5 mol% of ligand-free Pd(OAc)2 catalyst with electron-deficient aryl bromides. A wide variety of functional groups on the aryl bromide such as nitrile, nitro, acetyl, formyl, benzoyl, ester, trifluoromethyl, fluoro or methoxy was tolerated. © 2013 Elsevier Science. All rights reserved. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.