I was going to write something today about some of the other football I watch, the Serie A. I try to watch Atalanta though it’s difficult because most Serie A games are relegated to ESPN plus and they don’t let us subscribers record games. But I watch when I can.
Atalanta are a funny team. They are tiny, just over 20k people can fit in their stadium. They are located in Bergamo, which is a mountain town full of pensioners near the Swiss border and near the town of Milan.
The team is full of strange players. Josip Ilicic is probably the biggest name and he’s.. well.. he’s frustrating to watch. He thinks he can dribble, but he really can’t and he misses a LOT of shots because he takes most of his shots outside the 18 yard box.
The other player that you’re going to hear a lot about over the next few seasons is 27 year old Colombian forward, Duvan Zapata. He’s an anti-Ilicic. He takes almost every shot in the 18 yard box and this season is having his best ever year in front of goal. He’s overperforming xG by almost 4 goals.
Atalanta’s manager is Gasparini. He’s the former Juventus youth coach and if you ask people in Serie A he’s considered something of a genius. I honestly can’t see it, but that says more about me than him, I’m sure. He does like attacking football. They lead Serie A in goals scored, put 6 past Sassuolo, 5 on Frosinone, and just a few weeks ago had a 3-3 draw against Roma. A three goal comeback against Roma to be more precise.
But overall, you know what’s weird about Serie A? It sucks. Like it’s hard to watch. Atalanta are considered an exciting team, they love a good counter attack, Zapata is quick and powerful, but most matches in the league are played like the players are wearing cement shoes.
It’s also surprisingly bad defensively. I think I came to Serie A with the (frankly, outdated) idea that they played “Catenaccio” or at least that the fans, coaches, and players all valued defense. They may value it, but they don’t really play it. There is a lot of bad defending in Serie A. That one reason why Juventus have won the league 7 in a row and look set to win an 8th title, possibly undefeated.
It’s a frustrating league to watch as well, because of the fact that Juventus are so dominant. At least in Spain there are two main teams, with Atletico offering something to break up the duopoly. And in the Bundesliga, Bayern will lose the league every once in a while. But in Italy, it’s the same dish every day, every month, every year.
And today they are going from strength to strength and announced the signing of Aaron Ramsey. They are going to pay him £400k a week basic salary. That’s £20m a year and £80m over the next four years. That’s £80m guaranteed to the player.
I get the logic. I was one who argued for Flamini to get this exact type of deal back in 2008. It was one of my first ever blog posts on 7amkickoff. He ended up getting the deal, but at AC Milan and for over £100k a week, which at the time (2008/09) was an absurdly large salary. He made a total of 123 appearances in five years for AC Milan. His total cost to them was just around £26m.
All told, £26m for a player for five years is relatively cheap. If the logic makes sense for a player like Flamini, then what’s the problem with giving £20m a year to a guy like Ramsey?
First, I’m not a Ramsey hater. I have to say that because so many people jump to conclusions. Second, I’m also not in the camp that Ramsey is a “club legend”. He’s a great player, who won three FA Cups at Arsenal, and scored in two finals. But he’s also a player who didn’t play very often, who is a bit of a difficult player to fit into the squad, and who never really regained his form as an all rounder that he was early on in his career. Huge respect for what he’s come through after Shawcross broke his leg. Huge respect for his time at Arsenal. But I can also see why Arsenal didn’t want to give him £400k a week in salary.
First, there’s the problem with his fitness. Over the last four seasons he’s played the full 90 equivalent of 27.4 matches, 22.4 matches, 34.8 matches, and 32.4 matches. That’s across all competitions for Arsenal. Considering that the team play some 50+ matches in a year, he’s been available for just over 58% of them.
The other problem is that he’s not really a number 8, he’s not really a number 4 and he’s not really a number 10. At least, not at Arsenal he hasn’t been. He’s kind of all three. But that’s left both Wenger and Emery with the difficult task of fitting him into the team. He had his best spell at Arsenal on the right of the forward three. Because he kind of wants to be a forward-type. I think he wants to be a second striker and I can see him playing at Juventus in a very similar way to Thomas Müller at Bayern.
I don’t blame him for wanting to play higher up the pitch. Most players want to score goals if they can. And he can. He has 62 goals and 64 assists in 361 games for Arsenal.
But the biggest hurdle to paying Ramsey £83m over four years is simple finances. Yes, it would probably cost that much to buy a player of similar talent in transfer fees and salary. But transfers are dealt with differently on the books than salary. Salary is cash out the door. That fact makes the player really difficult to move.
Let’s say after two years you want to be rid of him because it hasn’t worked out. He’s 30 at this point and still has £40m in guaranteed wages. Even if you pay him £20m to take a 50% pay cut, almost no team is going to want to pay £200k a week for a 30 year old who isn’t a striker. And not only that but you are literally paying this man for the privilege of not paying him and not even getting any on-field use out of that £20m. And finally, that money has to be paid in cash and it’s not amortizable because he’s no longer an asset. It’s an astonishing commitment from Juventus for a player which many Arsenal supporters can’t see any huge value in.
Aaron Ramsey has hit a jackpot and I will be gobsmacked if every player in the top five leagues hasn’t seen this and placed a call to their agent saying that they want to run their contracts down. In 2008 Wenger predicted that more and more players would simply not sign new deals and ask for the transfer fee in salary instead. How much longer will there even be transfer fees?
As for Ramsey, I will be surprised if he’s not a huge success. I think it depends on where Allegri plays him but Ramsey is kind of perfect built for Serie A. He’s got an incredible engine, he probably could have been a world class marathon runner, and there’s a lot more space in the Italian league, he won’t be pressed the way he is at Arsenal, and if someone does pressure him, he’s got a lot of talent around him to pass to and from.
All of that talent will also make his game easier. He’s going from a team which just averaged 72% passing in an away game against Huddersfield to a team which almost never dips below 80% passing. From a team who have allowed 50+ goals a season to one which has allowed just 15 goals this season.
That said, this is a huge step up for Ramsey. Cristiano Ronaldo is not known as the world’s most forgiving teammate and Juventus are a hugely demanding club. Ramsey will be on the biggest salary ever paid to a British player and you can also guarantee that fact will be brought up every single time he misses a goal, plays a Hollywood backheel instead of a regular pass, or is out injured.
It’s a brave commitment but Ramsey’s always been one to do things his own way. Best of luck Aaron. Excuse me, I mean Mr. Ramsey. I hope he wins the Champions League.
Bravo to Aaron Ramsey. All the best sir.
Closest player to whom we can pin the ‘hero’ tag on in the late-Wengerian Era. That was not just ‘scored’ in those FA Cup wins– they were match winners. Late– and very late.
As to Ramsey and the Gunners decline to now?
Shawcross was the villain in the AR subplot.
But others come to mind (Cesc, RVP, Henry). That had they not jumped the HMS Wenger– this club may have found a higher plateau with now-Signore Ramsey a vital cog in the machine. I know. I’m butterfly-effecting here a bit. Just events might have been different, um, had they been different.
So, no pearl-clutching by me. No rending of garments either. I personally think highly of AR. While I’ve never been a bandwagon of any team in any sport– evah? I might just have to budget time (maybe some $$) to watch Juve’s new man next Fall.
jw1
Ramsey’s been heroic, for sure, but we would be remiss to not include Koscielny in that conversation. Talk about a big-time player. He almost never scored unless we needed it.
Agree.
Then? Kos & Per. Great pairing of complementary skills.
Like an apple and orange in the same pod. 🙂
jw1
Serie A has always been my favourite league to watch when big teams play each other. I can’t stomach games like Chelsea-Liverpool. Give me Napoli vs Inter any day of the week. But yeah the average midtable clash can be really ponderous. Ramsey will be fine in that league.
Whenever people call him an “Arsenal legend” my response is “well I guess that makes Alexis Sanchez one too, seeing as he also scored in two FA Cup Final wins for us”. It’s such an arbitrary term now, but personally I don’t think either of them are.
Now that there’s a better understanding of just how much Ramsey wanted, it’s nice to see most people accept that actually, far from the club trampling on ‘Arsenal values’, we did the logical thing in letting him go. The kind of generosity we showed injured players like Rosicky and Cazorla was only made possible by regular Champions League runs. The flipside of our over-reliance on frustratingly inconsistent players like Ramsey is falling out of the Champions League places and no longer having the capacity for such generosity.
For all his flaws, Ramsey had been a faithful and thorough professional throughout his career with us.
His “Hollywood flicks” made us groan when it becomes a turnover as much as accelerates the pulses of excitement when it brings about a fabulous assist/goal. Isn’t this rollercoaster emotions why we are so silly in love with the game?
Truth be told, it’s quite a sad moment to witness the wiltering of perhaps the last “petal” of Wenger’s “famed” project youth. And maybe this is the best way to break away from our recent troubled past; to plant, grow, graft, (hopefully) buy and start anew!
Nevertheless, #COYG, and all the best Rambo!
Serie A is a good league for him. Less wear and tear. Titles monopoly? Shrewth, he’ll get used to it. And he won’t give a toss if they win it every year of his contract, I’ll bet.
Juventus has emerged as something of a monopoly because the Milan teams, Roma and Napoli have gone backwards in terms of recruitment, management and star power. That’s not Juventus’ fault. Mourinho won the treble with Inter, and he’s still revered in that half of Milan.
And I’m sorry, but Cristiano is past it. Liverpool full back Robertson had him easily in check in last year’s final. He can barely raise a gallop these days. Yes, he’s scoring goals, but in a weak league. Madrid pulled off daylight robbery getting that huge transfer fee for a player in his mid 30s — albeit a great one — who has lost a couple of steps (and stepovers).
Two points of mild dissent…
Ramsey was never on track to get 400k from Arsenal, just because he got it from Juve. In fact, the reliable inside reporting had them agreeing something around 180k. The Juventus bump is some transfer fee, in which case, his agent pulled a blinder (I do wonder though if we’re talking across currencies, and whether that 400k is Euros and not GBPs).
Secondly, some of the games he didn’t play for Arsenal would be cup ties, European dead rubbers, rotation etc., so the 58% would be smidge higher, though I suspect not much more. I dont know what the figure is, but that’s got to be factored in.
I think it’s correct to say that he defied categorisation, but he undeniably brought a lot to the team, and not just offensively. His goalscoring record is the best ever for any Arsenal midfielder, and we’ve had some good ones. His ability in front of goal shames Mhki, Iwobi, Xhaka and Guendouzi.
I think that one glaring failure of the brief Emery reign is that he didnt tap into that. Unless we buy goalscoring midfielders and wide players, we are going to struggle to get goals if our world class forwards don’t fire. Ramsey (and Ozil to a lesser extent) brought goalscoring productivity. And unlike Ozil, he brought D.
He was clearly disappointed when Arsenal withdrew from the agreement, but what a way to land on your feet. Good luck in beautiful Turin. And you know what? The minute we return to the CL, we will draw Juventus.
Not a legend, but a great player, who can still add to his legacy. Play thee well, we wish you well, and wish we’d had a transfer fee!
Balanced piece, well done.
What makes a legend, though?
It’s not down to stats, really. Length of service, or important games or whatever. What makes a legend is how people feel about a given player. Given the shock injury and his miraculous recovery punctuated by those FA Cup goals, I think Arsenal history will look very kindly on Aaron Ramsey.
Still, $400k a week is insane and not really believable for him. If true, why wouldn’t he go? No brainer. Those wages and playing out your career at one of the most storied clubs in the world?
If not at Arsenal, Ramsey (and Bale) will certainly be legends in Wales.
Like too, too many players at the club, Santi Cazorla’s Arsenal career was ruined by injury but he will always be a legend to me because however fleetingly, he exemplified Wengerball at its best.
The issue I have with Juventus giving him the salary is I don’t think too many other clubs would have matched it. The salary arsenal was rumored to have offered was less than 300k so how did juventus come up with their number
For me… Ramsey missed lazily on many important ocassions too. He might be more successful at Juve but I always remember him for his unpredictability. He might be long serving but we have to find a new definition for the word if we wanna call him ‘Legend’
That more players haven’t already done a Flamini/Sanchez/Ozil/Rambo after seeing the greater potential to themselves of running their contracts down is the surprise.
I guess it shows how difficult it is to resist the established way: you have to be unafraid to act the individual rather than the team guy and to risk the uncertainty based on a belief in your own market value.
But we have say hats off to clever and independent Flambo and Rambo, then why not hats off to Sanchez and Ozil. The latter’s approx £45m over 3years is £15m a year: surely the going rate for a world class #10?
The. Ozil situation is bad because the money’s been splurged (and cash out the door from the club’s point of view is much more of a constraint) and he’s not the no. 10 The new manager would have chosen, just as Rambo is not his kind of no. 8, but that doesn’t make it bad business by IG.
I think Ramsey’s an Arsenal legend, but who’s to define that? Would I put up his picture on the walls of any new stadium? Yes, I would.
And him leaving maybe makes sense (though not selling him doesn’t) but I will remain bitter about how it was done. Not for him, but for what it says about Arsenal. It’s not about indulgence. If we didn’t want him to stay, don’t offer him a contract which he agrees to, and don’t make him a captain and then not play him. He was a ‘victim’ of our backroom politics, but what a way to land on his feet.
I think they’re going to play a 4312 with Pjanic, Matuidi and Can/Bentancur providing the base behind Ramsey, Ronaldo and Dybala. That is a good side. Fun thought though, Allegri might step down. There was talk of that this season, and still some talk about next season. But anyway, happy for Aaron, and good for him that he has Szczesny there to help him settle.
I hope Netflix still intend to come out with Seasons 2 and 3 of First team Juventus. Covering the Ronaldo and Ramsey transfers would make for interesting viewing, even in what is a puff piece.
Juve have already said he will play as a Mezzala: that’s the Pogba role in a 433. Which is an interesting counter point to my suggestion that he could be a second striker.
Yes just saw that. Probably will be some variation at times, but guess that’s how they see him.
I don’t really have a view about Rambo’s departure, other than that at a personal level I have always thought he was a hardworking reliable Arsenal player, and I am sad to see it is confirmed that he will go in the summer.
Good for him he has won the lottery in terms of salary – I certainly do not begrudge him that.
As for all he rest, what happened with the wrangling over his contract – who did did or did not do what – and which ‘side’ were working to an agenda and whether there was an embargo, or not, over what funds Mr Kroenke was prepared to release.
The workings of the club are shrouded in secrecy/confidentiality so it is impossible for outsiders such as we mere fans (the heartbeat of the club) to know. Therefore everything is speculation and gives some the opportunity to stick the stiletto into one party or the other as they see fit.
Most fans, I suspect, can only sigh if losing another player seems wrong, or simply shrug their indifference, because whatever they think it will make no difference to the outcome.
Right — so what’s the next upset on the cards?
Football hit the Indian TV space somewhere in 2001 I think. Cricket was (and still continues to be) the number 1 watched sport on Indian tele. However, I used to watch football on-and-off just as a change.
Fifa 2002 and Euro 2004 got me closer to the game and I started watching football a little more frequently. Arsenal’s run to the CL Final got me hooked, but it was the 2007-08 Arsenal team and especially Cesc who got a fan out of me. Not winning the league in 2007-08 remains my biggest Arsenal heartbreak to date.
Aaron Ramsey joined us the summer of 2008 and i quickly developed a liking for him. Then he got shawcrossed in 2010 and on his rusty return, was treated to some insane vile and abuse from many people. And then he produced his biggest season in 2013-14 which also brought us the FA cup. That Giroud backheel and then the Ramsey poke-hit to get us over the line and finally finally end that trophy drought. This memory will always remain with me and Ramsey will always be an Arsenal legend to me. I know each-his-own definition but all those of years of Wengerball and nothing to show really hurt, and one moment of brilliance from Giroud-Ramsey just changed that forever, brought some belief, happiness, joy, tears et al, and Ramsey for me is a legend for that.
Amen to that brother
Tim, just one comment, in regards of this sentence: “But I can also see why Arsenal didn’t want to give him £400k a week in salary.”
I don’t think that 400k were ever on the table. The amount that has been discussed with Ramsey (and according to some writings he has been ready to sign) for sure has been for a smaller amount. Was he going to sign because of love for the club, because of security/certainty or because he is stupid is not known, but I am sure it would have been a very different situation if the club didn’t pull out.
And I am going to say it again, although that people around me say that I am becoming annoying with repeating the same: taking away the offer doesn’t mean that the club didn’t want to pay him outrageous wages. Taking away the offer means that the club didn’t want the player AT ALL. Which is very bad business and plain stupid.
Clearly Juve and Ramsey’s are involved in some sort of money laundering scheme and should be investigated by Mueller, as soon as he’s done with Trump that is.
£400k per week, holly fu#king $hit!
I don’t really care what they pay him but this certainly puts the rumored £180k per week agreed by Arsenal, which I thought was kinda low to be true at the time of reporting, in a proper perspective.
One thing for sure though.
With Ramsey , and most likely Ozil gone next season too, I wonder where those goal of the season contenders are gonna come from( Leicester, Fulham).
The flair players will always give you some defensive liabilities but if you dump them, then you better improve your defensive shape and statistics.
Otherwise you just become unwatchable.
But here’s the kicker though, Chelsea paid £110m for Kepa and Drinkwater combined, while Juve got Szczesny and Ramsey for £10m.
Well done Arsenal.
£8 million.
I’ve been one of the biggest critics of Ramsey on this blog but he’s an Arsenal legend in my books. Maybe not in the same vein as Henry, Bergkamp et al but a legend none the less. I took a quick look at the Gunners Greatest 50 players on the Arsenal website. No. 41 is George Eastham. He spent six seasons at Arsenal during a period when we never finished higher than 7th. Obviously, for the club to hold you in the highest regard, it’s not just about winning trophies – the intangibles matter. In my eyes, Aaron Ramsey has done enough to be considered among the greats. In fact I would argue he has done more than Cesc who is probably the better footballer. My reasons are:
– He is our highest scoring midfielder in history. This fact alone should be one of the reasons why he should be considered among the greats.
– His winning goal ended a 9 year trophy drought and he went on to score another winning goal to cap off a magnificent 3 FA cup wins in 4 years which made gave us the most FA cup wins in the history of English football
– He always gave his best for the club and never hid even during times when it felt the club was littered with players who didn’t show enough pride to put on the shirt
– In some ways, he embodied the spirit of the club during a time when it was en vogue to kick Arsenal players, culminating in that horrific leg break. The mental fortitude he showed to fight back from that was nothing short of inspirational and I think people forget the sheer amount of joy we felt when he scored those goals against Stoke afterwards. They were priceless.
Yes he has his issues as a player and divided opinion but I think 20 years from now, the club and the fans will remember him fondly while many others will be forgotten.
—-
As far as whether he sets a precedent in terms of players running down their contracts – I think the litmus test will be the Hazard situation at Chelsea. If there was ever a chance that Chelsea might be able to change his mind, that has all but evaporated now after their hilarious defeat to City. Question is: will Hazard look at the Ramsey transfer and think he should stick around one more season until the end of his contract? My money would still be on him leaving this summer because unlike Arsenal, Chelsea will try to recoup some value for him. And that’s just the thing – I think at the top level, clubs will still have the upper hand. Clubs that are a level below may not have as much of a say.
You know why George Eastham is on the list? He was the first footballer to fight and win the right to free movement. He wasn’t a great footballer. Before his case, teams were allowed to keep players in perpetuity even after their contracts had run out and to not pay them if they demanded a trade. His court case set up the modern transfer system.
Is he a legend?
Of course. That’s why I said the intangibles matter. I think a lot more fans would consider him a legend if we won the league instead of Leicester.
Personally I think Ramsey has given more to Arsenal than any other player in the post-Invincibles era. Perhaps it’s a tie between him and Kos but Ramsey edges it for me for overcoming that injury.
Cazorla has given more. He’s the lege for me.
That’s another close one for me. I would certainly consider Cazorla a legend. I think the last couple of years of his Arsenal career were too hampered by injury to say that he has given more to Arsenal than Ramsey. His tenure was much shorter but he gave a lot in that short time and we played some of our best football with him on the pitch.
I think in the post-Invincibles era, my votes for “legend” status are Ramsey, Kos and Santi. I struggle with Cesc. The way he departed left a bad taste in my mouth and it turned out that he was a serial badge kisser which made my blood boil every time I saw him do it.
Fuck Soler.
That’s so interesting about George Eastham. Need to read up more on that story.
Stories like his and Bosman’s are so crucial to understanding why football works the way it does. They’re also the reason the winter transfer window exists at all.
Partly because of the precedents those players set, the European Court of Justice (I think it was) ruled that not having a winter window tied players to clubs for 12 months at a time and that situation would be too restrictive on a player’s free movement.
I disagree.
Having watched Eastham – his passing ability was equal or better than Cesc’s, and Mesut.
A magician with the ball.
Ok, well I’ll take your word for that. I wasn’t even alive!
I’m sure it will come out that the £400k a week includes bonuses for appearances (he is injury prone after all) and performance metrics. Otherwise, Juventus is insane. General consensus was that Juve took a huge financial risk with the Ronaldo deal. Juve have money, but it’s not like Serie A is a league flush with money. The Italian economy is second to last swirl down the toilet and the league is following suit.
Anyway, I’m happy for him, I always thought that if I were a professional footballer I would have done as much as I possibly could to use it as a passport to living and playing in different countries and cities. Turin is beautiful, the club is great and if he’s smart he takes his family there, learns the language and he and his family comes away not just financially richer, but culturally richer as well.
Ornstein said that the 400k is base salary.
I thought he also said on the BBC podcast yesterday that he wasn’t sure the accuracy of that figure (and that Juve were privately disputing it was that high).
Guardian now reporting £300k a week.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/feb/11/football-aaron-ramsey-juventus-arsenal-transfer-highest-paid-gb-player
Marcotti I think said 250k. Much as I want it to be 400k base salary for Ramsey’s sake, I think it’s possible Ornstein may just have been going by sources at Arsenal who seem to want to portray Ramsey as greedy/unattainable at such figures.
Of course Juventus would want to make it seem cheaper too.
Still hope it’s 400k but not sure now.
I thought everyone in the football world agreed that with Italian transfer stories, unless it says ‘net’, it means before taxes.
It should apply here no?
Can we discuss where Ornstein is getting his info? I wonder. Last week talking to Arseblog he suggested Arsenal were in the market for a “box to box” midfielder in January, but then yesterday he said that Ramsey didn’t fit Emery’s plans because Ramsey was a natural #8 which is typically defined as …. a box-to-box midfielder. And Emery doesn’t employ that type of midfielder. Seems like nonsense to me. If Ramsey didn’t fit our plans tactically, why would we be looking to replace him?
Not sure. Ornstein, though, is a BBC reporter and they have strict editorial standards. He must be getting reliable information that is verified by several sources. That said, speaking to Arseblog is different than publishing on BBC.com. Perhaps he was mixing his opinion in with some things he knows or some thing he’s been handed from the club.
“But I can also see why Arsenal didn’t want to give him £400k a week in salary.”
His agent demanded about £180k a week, which is in the same range as Aubameyang, Lacazette and Mkhitaryan. That kind of salary looked reasonable before Kroenke’s cost-cutting policy. Now, the bigger picture says that Juve is a club with ambitions while Arsenal has become a feeder club again.
“As for Ramsey, I will be surprised if he’s not a huge success. I think it depends on where Allegri plays him but Ramsey is kind of perfect built for Serie A.”
Agree. When Juve reached the Champions League final, they always had a player to cover Pogba or Vidal. In a three-man midfield, Matuidi, Pjanic or Can would do that job for Ramsey.
Have you seen Juve play? Most boring team title should go to them considering the talent quality they have when compared to other Serie A teams.
I don’t watch them on the regular but I have seen some of their domestic matches. They are a weird team. So much goes through CR7 that their other talents seem kind of left out to dry. They have Cuadrado, Costa, and Dybala on the books but they are certainly not preferred.
I will say that the excitement in their matches seems to come from them making huge gaffes and us all hoping that they will lose but then they don’t
Accurate!
I like Aaron Ramsey a lot as a footballer and a man, but I’d hesitate to describe him as a legend. I like being careful like that. Only 4 players in my time watching us qualify — Bergkamp, Vieira, Henry and Tony Adams. Cesc Fabregas, Robert Pires and a few others come awfully close. Van Persie could have been. Ramsey was a very good player for Arsenal. But legend? Not to me.
I think this underpins the difficulty a contemporary Arsenal supporter faces in allotting legend status. Your four bonafide legends include the only captain to win the English top flight in 3 different decades (who also came through the academy and formed part of a legendary defensive unit) and 3 Invincibles, one of whom changed the image of the club by merely signing for the club (I’d throw in Pires too, personally). Against the backdrop of that, literally nobody since those glory years lives up to that, and they all suffer in comparison. And as legend status is conferred by fans based on feeling rather than any objective measure…