After 11 years Aaron Ramsey’s Arsenal career has come to a close. And like the spirits that passed before him, he will move on now from player and into legend; a ghost player, one which in three years we will say things like “we never really replaced him properly” and “I wish we had him back”.
He will become even better than he was. Not just a three time FA Cup winner, but scoring the winning goal twice. But even more than that, he will certainly be remembered for carrying this team through some dark times. The darkest of which were probably these last two seasons.
This season was probably his best. Not from a statistical perspective, but from an emotional one. Offered a contract, which was reneged. Left out by Unai Emery (possibly an attempt to force a move by the club), then played in some increasingly weird positions, and finally the reluctant admission that the team needed him.
Sit down they said…nah, he replied. I think I’ll stand up.
I’ve written my fill about Aaron this season and I’m not going to give one of those full career breakdowns – not out of spite (contrary) but rather simply because I’ve already done it, severally. That said, I expect many paeans will be penned this week as he makes his transition.
We will miss him. We will miss him this week. On thursday. The missing has already begun.
No matter what you think of Ramsey (my guess is mostly positive) we need to replace him this summer. I used to do this thing where I would look through the stats at all of the top young prospects and that was good fun. But what I’ve found is that Arsenal don’t do business in a way that makes much sense. Either that or we are sort of hamstrung by the size of the club. But the point is that I would do a ton of work looking for top young players and Arsenal wouldn’t sign them. Arsenal signings have rarely been OOTB ready players.
That bit about the size of the club is important. I watched Ajax demolish Spurs yesterday and one thing stands out: that Ajax have a team, put together on the extreme cheap, which plays progressive passing football, and plays as a cohesive unit. And the players are hungry.
Maybe they lucked into this – and there’s an element of that because much of the class of 2019 came in from their academy. But there have been plenty of examples of clubs that built a passing, electric, fun, style of football on the cheap.
The only problem with that is that it’s not sustainable. If you build a team from academy grads, you rely a lot on once-in-a-lifetime prospects. That’s what Spurs are currently riding on with Harry Kane. If you try to build a top club on the cheap, you also run into the problem that Arsenal faced in 2010 – that the top top clubs will poach away your players. And then you have to keep identifying new talent to keep the dying show on the road.
Maybe this all seems a bit confusing and honestly, I’m just kind of thinking out loud here. But it seems to me that a club like Arsenal are somewhat unattractive to the kind of hungry, young, underpaid talent that we actually need. It feels like as a club we are in a catch 22.
Athletes are incentivized by smaller contracts now and the promise of bigger contracts later. In order to stay hungry and continue to develop, they kind of need the promise of a bigger deal in the future.
Another oddity is that Arsenal are still a sort of big pressure team. Us Gooners don’t seem to have time for players to develop. We want to win now. We want ready-mades now. Players and their managers know this. Let’s take Tielemans as an example. At Leicester he has time to settle into the league. At Arsenal the demands would have been much higher. I think a lot of young players are being advised to go play for clubs like Leicester, Everton, Wolves, rather than jump on Arsenal. Simply because the transition is going to be easier.
And then there’s the problem of identity. I see Emery as a stop-gap. His job was to come in and rescue the value of certain players. The Brian Trust openly admitted that he won the job because he had detailed dossiers on all of the players and exactly how he would improve them. I know that my cynicism can be exhausting (I apologize) but when I heard Gazidis talk about that all I could see was cartoon dollar signs in his eyes and the sound of the cash machine opening in the background.
He didn’t win the job because he was going to bring in an exciting new style of football – sure he promised that but – he won the job because the management team saw dollar signs. They figured that if Emery could deliver on his promises, we could sell Mustafi (finally), and some of the other more problematic players at this club. And while the money aspect is important, what’s Arsenal’s playing style? Are players attracted to “Emeryball”? I don’t think so.
So while I agree with everyone else that Arsenal need to replace a ton of players this summer. I’m deeply cynical when it comes to whether we will get that done. Or more to the point how we will get that done.
I was asked yesterday if I would accept Arsenal finishing 15th every once in a while in order to have a team like Ajax. I don’t think as a club that the fans are going to accept that. But I do think we need to accept that the 21 seasons of top four under Arsene Wenger is never returning. Not only has the league changed – there is so much more money in teams like Leicester, Everton, Watford, and Wolves which makes them so much more competitive – but we’ve changed as a club. Stan is never going to put a trillion dollars into this club. And without massive investment from the owner Arsenal are going to have to rely on brilliant recruitment, academy players, developing a style of play, and in a lot of ways becoming a scrappier, hungrier club. That means a lot of ups and downs, I’m afraid.
As for this summer and the need to replace Aaron Ramsey, I agree with everyone that it needs to be done. But I don’t think this club will be investing in any players over £12m in transfer value. I bet they feel like they replaced Ramsey with Guendouzi and Torreira. Further recruitment in the CM area will probably be filled with academy players and/or cheap stop-gaps.
Aaron Ramsey is really one of the last of the Wenger-era players. 11 years at the club, almost half of Wenger’s Arsenal career.
Not only was Tielemans afforded time to settle in the team and league, he was also promised a starting place at Leicester by Claude Puel.
Arsenal and ,as a matter of fact, most the so called big clubs would never make these sort of guarantees to a 21 year old coming to the PL.
If I’m not mistaken that was the reason he went to Monaco in a first place even though Arsene and many others were talking to him a couple years ago.
When Ajax played Man U a couple of years ago in the Europa final and we were in the midst of debating Arsene Wenger’s future and that of Ozil, Sanchez, Ox, Wilshere et al, I made the case that Arsenal should become an Ajax or Dortmund… on steroids. We have more resources than those clubs, and arguably more capacity to bring in top prospect 16, 17 and 18 year olds and groom them, but what we’d need is a vision of “the Arsenal way” and a coaching staff to match. For me this is the only way because we don’t have the resources to match United, City or even Liverpool so we’re caught between two worlds if we try to prop up an aging roster with 2nd tier market transfers that 50m kitties would limit you to.
Mislintat was a good step in that direction and he obviously had somewhat of an eye for young talent… but he’s gone. Emery and Sanhelli brought in Penis Suarez on loan, a complete bust and were pursuing aging Carrasco or Perisic – that’s not building for the future.
Everyone thought it would get worse until it got better once Wenger left… I think this season might have been a mistake from a footballing perspective. We pursued CL in hopes of a financial windfall and all we did was delay the inevitable correction. Maybe before next season the club sells Ozil, Mkhyi, Kos, Mustafi, Monreal et al and we have to live through a tough season where Reiss-Nelson, Smith-Rowe, Willock, Mavropanos, Nketiah et al cut their teeth.
Sven knew what he was doing. Him leaving is a huge loss to the club, because we’re not appointing anyone as capable, motivated and as empowered in this new structure.
Yeah, the situation between top clubs and younger players is tough. Short of the significant outliers like an Mbappe, very few under 20 players get much playing time in the top teams in the PL or outside. Smith Rowe was doing well earlier in the year. Seems like he could at least potentially be a Ramsey replacement, but hard to know without more playing time in the PL.
Relative to yesterdays Ajax-Spurs match, I REALLY wish we had the money to get de Ligt.
There’s nothing wrong in making money by improving players. A different story to compromise the football simply to make money, which is what is happening now. I’m going to continue on my anti-Sanllehi sentiment and say that when I read your headline, my first thought was that’s exactly why Ramsey was pushed out. That might seem uncharitable but Sanllehi is a political creature who came from a political club, and I don’t trust him.
Agreed on Ramsey’s replacement. My guess, we’ll sign Nkunku from PSG and promote Willock and ESR. The young Brazilian winger, Nelson, and another winger/dribbler/attacker to replace Welbeck, Miki and one of Ozil/Auba, whoever they can get rid of.
We’re going to be the plucky underdogs who overperform if they can sneak into 4th, but will be successful at 6th and still play in the EL. It will be how they will sell the Arsenal narrative and how Emery feels comfortable anyway.
Amazingly enough, I think despite all the problems and coming upheaval, we have the basis of a good squad, and I am not against going for a Project Youth redux.
While the difficulty of club size is true, if we can scout and acquire the right young players early enough, we should now have the resources to both keep them for a while longer, and supplement them with a couple of big club rejects (like Alexis and Ozil).
I disagree with your style criticism. Emery plays a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3, even Pep Guardiola acknowledged that Emery was always using the same formation. The transition at Arsenal has been difficult because we don’t have a CAM, LWF or RWF. This is in addition to our midfield frailty and defensive shambles.
The target set was to return to the Champions League as soon as possible to ease financial constraints, implementing a new style at all costs had to wait for the more important target of the Champions League.
So we are playing a fusion of Wenger-Emerised futbol. The 4-2-3-1 has failed to hold when the RWF and LWF you have at your disposal are Iwobi and Mhkitaryan, and we don’t have a CAM, so the attacking line of 3 meant to support the striker was highly flawed and the formation is rendered useless. I mentioned earlier this season on ACLF, that we are missing a CAM, and playing Mhkitaryan and Ozil together is a very bad idea. No intensity, carrying 2 players who are supposed to lead but who cant influence the game.
Instead, Emery chose to polish the 3 at the back which Wenger briefly flirted with. So until the squad is beefed up, our best formation is 3-4-3 with Ramsey playing box to box. Once the formation and squad are sorted, Ramsey won’t be missed.
No intensity? That’s not Mkhitaryan’s problem, he’s a highly active player. His problem is simply finishing. As for Ozil not being able to carry a team, I guess so, but the real problem is that there’s no impetus in midfield and Emery sacrifices control of the ball to have a back three because he has so many awful defenders. More than anything we need to get control of the ball. Not sure Emery’s able to do that. Apart from PSG where he had a boatload of midfielders at his disposal, his teams are actually quite allergic to the ball. Which we see here at this Arsenal team.
About Mhkitaryan, he has a switch which goes on and off. He is inconsistent, good at setting up counters but I don’t think he’s the best pressing option for a right wing forward to suit Emery’s system. There have been games when he seemed anonymous. Based on this season, I would rather have Ryan Fraser or David Brooks of Bournemouth instead of Mhkitaryan in an Arsenal shirt.
Yes you might have a point about Emery’s teams being allergic to the ball, but they beat Liverpool in an Europa league final doing just that, so it works for some teams. What Emery is been asked to do at Arsenal is get us back into the Champions League and if you can’t do that in 2 years, then you are toast.
We can’t argue about controlling the ball when we really need a defensive overhaul, because in my books Koscielny, Monreal and Mustafi should be off in the summer. Xhaka should also be sold. The only way I see us playing possession football is if our midfield choices improve or if we play Academy midfielders, who can also be inconsistent, but they are better drilled in the Arsenal way of midfield play. Heck, when playing Guendouzi seemed refreshing, how poor had our squad fallen? That’s the reality of where we are.
Remember a midfield of Xhaka and Ramsey shipped 4 goals at Liverpool last season, so we need to get better, faster, skilful players than Xhaka for us to succeed.
Really shows the foolishness of appointing as director of football someone with a business background. Never made sense to take Ramsey’s contract off the table before finding a good replacement.
The success of any club depends on the recruitment and development of players. That’s why other big clubs have former players as sporting directors (Overmars at Ajax, Zorc at Dortmund, Salihamidzic at Bayern Munich, Paratici at Juventus, Abidal at Barcelona, etc…).
I’d be pretty happy if we could poach Overmars from Ajax, but even with him being a former Arsenal player, that’s probably as unlikely as getting de Ligt.
This is one of your better, more incisive articles, Tim…and your conclusions hurt like hell.
Cheers, Aaron. Thanks for the Cups. Just can’t get enough…
I have a lot of time for Aaron Ramsey and my beloved Arsenal but I have zero feeling for Barcelona as a football club.
But when The Visitor From Another Planet plays the way he can, how can you not be moved if you have any positive feeling for the game in general?
Messi’s 600th goal for his club was truly worthy of the ocassion. Yet another sublime free kick that will be enjoyed over and over. Also he calmly finished Suarez’s clanger off the bar and generally bossed the game from beginning to end, while Mo Salah missed a sitter into an empty net!
He’ll be retiring soon now and heading back to his home world. I keep saying it but enjoy his exploits while you can.
Messi free kick was just sick even by his standards but how fast is VVD in a all out sprint
A large part of the Arsenalverse did not seem to take to Ramsey. Which is interesting considering he was considered good enough to be pursued by Juventus and, possibly, Bayern.
I think that if he were still an Arsenal player there would have been a lot of “same old Ramsey” groans about his injury. Ah well, that’s another fan base’s problem now
Goes to show that fans’ sentiment against a player or manager is not a reliable gauge of his inherent value.
Tim, that’s a good point re whether players will come for emery, perhaps heightened by the lack of clarity on the clubs macro vision and identity, perhaps bar the footballing issues, the biggest problem we have.
Are emery’s team stats this year similar to his previous clubs? Is he over thinking and tinkering due to our squad or because that’s historically his MO?
For me, the weirdness this season began when Gazidis decided to jump ship to Milan. He’d spent years in a power struggle with Arsene, and having finally succeeded in getting what he wanted, he pissed off to AC Milan. From that point on, Sven was in danger because the man who’d brought him to the club and made assurances to him over his role, had bizarrely quit after only a few months.
And then, in the January transfer window, Sven was sidelined while Sanhelli and Emery pursued one of the most expensive and useless loan signings ever in Penis Suarez, a player who added the sum of sweet fuck all to the team, while the likes of Tielemans was being snapped up by Leicester.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is, don’t get your hopes up for the summer. If we thought there was dysfunction before, these guys are going to make it a billion times worse.