When it comes to Arsenal, nothing divides fan opinion like.. any topic. Just pick a topic. Any topic. Fans will be divided. But if you really want to get some people going, you should just say “I like Aaron Ramsey and I’m sad to see him go.”
Bayern Munich are reportedly set to sign Ramsey and I know exactly why: he’s the replacement for Muller. Since 2016, Muller’s performances have sucked. So, Ramsey will come in and provide that same energy and goal-scoring that Muller did during his tenure as Raumdeuter.
There’s quite a prose-laced column penned by Barnay Ronay on Muller back in 2013 when the “Space sniffer” was at his peak. It contains this gem of a paragraph: “What a player Müller is, albeit one with a distinctly slow-burn appeal, the kind of love-at-fourth-sight merchant it is necessary to watch a few times just to get some sense of, well … exactly what he’s doing out there. It is useful to remember that Bayern’s inside-outside forward is now credited with having a specific personal superpower. Not quite a playmaker, some way short of a striker, and blessed with no extreme qualities of power or technique, Müller is instead the world’s first Raumdeuter, which is German for “space investigator”.”
You could replace “Muller” with “Ramsey” in that article and not miss a single point: sullenly unliked, often misunderstood, no discernable super power, and yet somehow the player who scores miracle goals.
But Arsenal supporters have had players like that before and still stood behind them. Olivier Giroud is still beloved by most Arsenal fans, despite a rather tepid goal-scoring record, and despite the fact that he was chronically incapable of making a regular 10ft pass or to receive the ball and turn his man. For some players we fans accept their faults and praise their abilities. For other players it seems like it’s never enough.
Ramsey is an especially peculiar player because he defies my theory that fans are basically a results-driven lot. Winning elevates a player’s stature. Both literally and figuratively. If Arsenal had a younger Robert Pires on this team today, a guy who basically didn’t play any defense and turned the ball over a lot, there would be podcast after podcast dedicated to why he’s “crap”.
Ramsey also scored big goals in big games, which is yet another reality-distorting fact, and is yet another fact about Ramsey which many people seem comfortable disregarding. He scored the winning goal in an FA Cup final. Excuse me, he scored TWO winning goals in TWO FA Cup finals. He’s also scored a backheel goal against Tottenham, that scorpion kick goal against CSKA, and what will probably be goal of the season this year against Fulham.
I think what happened with Ramsey is that people wanted more. They wanted him to “nail down a position”, to play more conservatively and be less “hollywood”, but also to be more creative, and tackle more, dribble better, track back more, and be a better distributor. All of that while also not losing the goal-scoring and his tireless running.
I also think a lot of people blame Arsene Wenger for Ramsey’s development (or lack of). We saw him in the 2013/14 season where he scored 10, assisted 8, averaged 3.3 tackles per game, was making long passes, through balls, and even dribbling the ball and wanted him to “kick on”. We wanted him to be that guy, that more easily defined central midfielder, but it never happened. He went on to be something less well defined, playing wide sometimes, sometimes deployed up top, almost a misfit in the club, like Thomas Muller was for a long time. Maybe that’s Wenger’s fault or maybe that’s just the type of player Ramsey is.
Regardless of what we all wanted from him, he’s moving on. He’s leaving us with two FA Cup winning goals among his 60 (so far) and a bunch of memories of stunning goals. I wish him the best of luck. Except when we have to play against each other.
Sadly for his haters I think he will be good at Bayern. They are a more disciplined team (tactically) and he will slot in nicely as a replacement for Muller. Fans often wonder what Ramsey does, the same question people asked of Muller. What Muller does (what he used to do) is score goals and win trophies.
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