It will be interesting to see if Aaron Ramsdale starts any of Arsenal’s next two fixtures or if rotation is just an Arteta translation for playing in the Carabao Cup.
Some will hope it’s true that our manager doesn’t want a designated number one because Rambo is a popular member of our dressing room. Yes, he made mistakes in the title race, but he also made world class saves at Anfield and Saint James Park. His body of work over two seasons has been more than good enough and he is someone who has played his part in helping the club in returning to the Champions League.
It’s his personality and character which is why some Gooners are fearing Mikel Arteta may have overthought things. You can keep doing that until eventually you make one pointless decision too many and it costs you.
Was the keeper a position that needed changing?
Was it broken?
What did Ramsdale do wrong against Man United?
What did Raya do on Sunday that Ramsdale couldn’t have done?
While I want Ramsdale to rescue his Gunners career, I will respect Arteta more if he simply rates Raya higher.
That’s less messy then Ramsdale playing tonight or in the NLD terrified to make a mistake. Again, what happened at Goodison that was worth creating that environment?
Players who have worked with our boss say he’s not the type who puts an arm round the shoulder or feels the need to explain his thought process.
He says he owes it to fans to always answer truthfully regarding the team, but in his recent press conferences at the very least he’s been manipulating the truth.
This is a man who every summer has promised fresh starts and clean slates for everyone only to then pay talent to sit at home or have their contracts ripped up.
This is the same person who with a straight face said Matt Smith being on the bench instead of Ozil for a Cup Final was a ‘footballing decision’.
Again, there’s only so many players you can just wash your hands of until it becomes an issue.
While the wording seems to be that Ramsdale will play again; if you went to work today and your employer was asking you to share your workload with someone else, that’s not a sign of faith in your abilities.
Arteta had the audacity to compare this to the situation Ramsdale inherited when he had to compete with Leno.
The difference is Leno had a catalogue of errors behind him and when we signed Ramsdale we didn’t try to hide we were buying a new first choice keeper.
There’s comparisons with how Pep Guardiola treated Joe Hart, yet Pep had that judgement right away, from day one, his view was Hart wasn’t good enough with his feet and City would spend money till they found the suitable candidate.
He didn’t work with Hart for two years rather than just mix things up.
The worry of course is that Arteta has been compared to his teacher so often he believes in his own hype.
Maybe the 41-year-old has bought into the narrative of apprentice out thinking the mentor?
Having 70 different formations (apparently to draw with Fulham) is one thing, but he can’t be serious about subbing goalies as a tactic?
He does that, it’s a sackable offense.
Pep, Sir Alex, Mr Wenger …. names who revolutionised the sport never dared anything so random.
Before trying to recreate the sport where a keeper is an alternative off your bench, maybe win a title first?
Because if you’re at the point where you’re trying to change the game so radically, then I would think that you had mastered everything else?
If I were the Kroenke Family I would be asking ‘why have you spent so much on Havertz’ and ‘why can’t Smith Rowe get any minutes’ if you’re now saying that a keeper can be deemed a viable sub?
Is Raya kicking a ball a little bit better worth washing hands off a player who is at an age he could go elsewhere and become world class.
He’s upsetting someone when he doesn’t need too.
He’s making a mess when he could have kept things tidy.
A puzzle that didn’t need fixing.
This is one tinker too many.
This could come back and bite Arteta.
Dan Smith
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Arteta has never subbed Ramsdale in any game. Did he ever say about it?
He said there are two different instances where he wanted to change the goal keeper in the last campaign but didn’t, one at sixty minutes and the other at eighty five minutes
I see. It made sense when we had time-wasting tactic last season, but it’d be useless this season
Yea Gai, he did mentioned in one of his interview that he could sub keepers like any other player. He never sub Ramsdale before because there wasn’t other top options. Besides, he said in his interview he is willing to make bold decions that would help the club win games.
However, I don’t think he will do that. Why sub a keeper if not injured?
Well, some coaches do when penalties is to determine the winner of a huge competition or cup game.
Let’s wait and see.
Keepers shouldn’t be subbed, a goalkeeper watches the match even more than the manager.. they are the first to detect danger.. subbing off a goalkeeper in games is equivalent to giving a coach a red card.
Allow the manager to do his job. Lol
If a top half club, say Chelsea or Brighton should comes in for Ramsdale in January, that no doubt will unsettles the Englishman.
Why unearth should a goal keeper of the quality as Ramsdale, who has not put a foot wrong this campaign should contend with sitting on the bench?
It’s called rotation and I’ve no doubt Ramsdale will start tonight.
Raya is starting tonight…..
Think Marty is right, Raya starts tonight
I understand that ripping up contracts and letting talent walk out the door is a Just Arsenal talking point, but can you name one player who left and went on to be valuable at another club? The closest thing is Aubameyang at Barcelona, but that even ended badly.
Lacazette, Mari, William, Leno, Tierney, Balogun, Mavropanos, Guendouzi
Check up these guys after leaving us mate
Pretty sure none of those players had their contract ripped up.
And Tierney’s on loan
So what happened with Willian then?
My mistake. Atleast he never wanted his contract paid up.
Most of those players have done pretty well since leaving Arsenal. However, which of them can we truly say was a mistake to transfer or that we regret moving on? Are any of those players key to success for an elite club in Europe?
The “talking point” is a really odd preoccupation of certain contributors to the site who struggle to find much positive to write about.
Hmm…not sure I can remember saying any of them would or should be in our team currently. I only answered his question on which players have become valuable for other clubs after leaving us. You should do better than throwing this anti-Arteta narrative everywhere mate
I meant which players became more valuable after having their contract ripped up. I should have made myself more clear.
Mavropanos and Guendouzi
Both of those were transfers. I am asking about players who had a valid contract with Arsenal FC, but were paid money to agree to terminate their contact early. Examples of this would be Ozil, Pepe, Aubameyang, etc. Hope this helps you to understand my question.
Aha, we meet again justarsenal my dear old friend.
Guess the first article I’m seeing, with same negative dramatic tone from same dramatic writer.
Arteta won’t be the first to have 2 quality GK to rotate, Pep at some point was using Bravo in UCL and Hart for EPL.
This season Brighton’s changed GK for different games, guess who made a fuss about it? Absolutely no one.
Arteta does what every manager does since the beginning of football, then comes the theatrics from everywhere, and you’re still pushing it as fan too.
If you actually analyze games Dan, you’d have seen it was purely tactical, just like our corners were in the game.
“What did Raya do on Sunday that Ramsdale couldn’t have done?”
Ramsdale is not the strongest at coming out to claim high balls. If you actually wanted to be purely analytical about it before writing this, you’d know. I love Rambo, but we’re going to pretend he’s solid at coming out to claim crosses and high balls? The numerous times he tried last season and he flapped his arms wide open??
Secondly Raya last season was only behind Martinez when it came to high claims with 50+ claims.
Guess how many claims Ramsdale had?? 17 claims.
Now that’s not to say Ramsdale is a bad GK, but it was purely tactical. We were never gonna dominate them in the air, so it was safe to start the better GK who could increase the chances for us with his aerial claims, and guess what?? He did it, he every crosses or aerial balls he came out for, he got them all, without flapping or punching it out.
The aim was to beat Everton in a different way.
It’s the same reason we played all our corners short instead of long, because they’d easily beat us in the air.
Ramsdale will most likely start today, I am sure he’s starting today. Arteta’s always made it clear he wanted two quality GKs, that competition is the reason Martinez bailed, Raya is willing to be that competition.
We have 2 great GKs, whichever starts, good for us.
So what’s the need for the drama?
Anyway Goodluck to the team tonight. Buzzing to be back in the UCL
And good to see you again Eddie!
Good to be back AdPat!!
You’ve kept it running and growing each year. Great job!
One other thing Raya was better at was passing the ball with his feet.
And most likely why Raya will be our first choice keeper from now on, as we seem to have a preference for the short ball out from the keeper, which is Raya’s forte.
Good post, agree with everything you wrote, Talksh’te with their low IQ presenters trying to stir sh.t as they have nothing better to say
Personally i want to see competition for spots in the team at every department. They would both get sufficient game time.
I think we’ll soon see what’s to become of Ramsdale but I think he will be here for long. He has a lot to improve and is still young so can work on his weaknesses. And Raya is a perfect GK to learn from for Ramsdale. I don’t see an issue there.
Arteta must have seen by now how competitions for a place pushes players to improve faster and become better, so if he wants to do the same with GKs, I don’t see any issue.
And Arteta doesn’t need to be Klopp, Pep or Wenger or even their pupil to do what he feels right for the team. It’s silly to think Arteta needs to be older or even with title winning experiences to do things that are off the traditions in football. He is given permission by the club to do what he think is best for the team and that’s all that matters actually. I this GK topic is getting blown out of proportion and I think logic aside, the issue many people have is because Arteta is a rookie manager and at this stage in his career, he is not expected or even “allowed” to do something novel in football. That’s just age old elitism imo.
So basically you have to master everything before having the permission to try something new never done before. Only great manager are allowed to change the game. Innovation be gone we only stick to what those that came before us did.
Just another article for the sake of complaining. I swear Dan must have a quota of rubbish article only designed to boost comments or views from Pat otherwise i can’t understand how he can have great articles and views then revert back to these type of dross.
Maybe split personality or an evil twin.
Nuce to see Eddie back and his usual insight into the Everton game makes complete sense to me at least.
I’m sorry, buy Ramsdale HAS made some errors (as all keepers have done) so let’s not run away with the idea he hasn’t.
Good on you MA – competition for every position…. just need a top goalscorer like Toney!!
That money would be better spent on the next Harry Kane (if you’ve seen him score goals). His name is Even Ferguson and he plays for some obscure club at the other side of the world… check notes….Brighton and Hove Albion. That’s their name
Ken, thank you.
It feels nice to be back here too.
Looking forward to having an even better season this time around
I remember back then when virtually everyone taught Victor Valdez was the weakest link in the Barcelona team because of the mistakes he made while trying to play out from the back. Little did we know that that was goalkeeping evolution, the rest is history. Pep was a rookie manager in his first season.
Pep was criticized by the English Media for telling one of, if not the best goalkeeper in the premier league in Hart back then that he was not part of his plans, the rest is history. Many criticized him for trying to change the orthodox nature of goalkeeping seeing it as unnecessary, the rest is history.
Arteta was called “trying to look smart” by Simon of Talk Sport for discussing footballing ideas after the game with Everton when he talked about substituting goalkeepers in matches if necessary to change the momentum of the match because to Simon it’s unorthodox. Think about it, all Arteta did was discusse ideas after the game when quized by journalists. It’s saddens me when I see people react negatively or criticize, or are jealoused of others for just trying to evolve, think of or try something they haven’t taught about or scared to tryout.
If Arteta fails or succeeds while trying he would leave with the consequences. Pep is currently basking in his many successess for been exceptional genius in his field.
I do think a challenge is fine. You just can’t keep doing it over and over. What would be the point of challenging someone like Ederson or Allison. Need a consistent GK at some point. I don’t think Ramsdale has reached their level yet so the competition is fair. I still think it’s strange if Arteta is gonna be swapping them out regularly. Lets wait and see how he approaches it.
If only the writer knows we don’t do egocentric players in this Arsenal team and Rammers is definitely not one then you won’t be making a fuss out of nothing. Both keepers are firmly in our plans no form of unsettlement at all.
subbing a GK during a game makes equal sense to any other position
different GK have different strengths and weaknesses, why not switch a GK to one with the profile that suits the game conditions
the obvious example is GK good at penalties as you approach a penalty shootout
obvious because there are clearly some GK better at penalties than others, and obvious because could have a big impact on winning or losing
other GK traits include ability on crosses, corners, set piece, coming off their line, shot stoppers, and of course being good with their feet
the situation of the game and the opposition may call to switch the GK to the one with the profile that best matches
when you look at it that way is astounding the received wisdom that GK are different has lasted as long as it has, one of those that will seem instantly outdated and everyone questioning why it hadn’t happened sooner
any tactical advantage to win a game is what Arteta is doing
In the Fulham game, he should done better, in our Europa quater final . He make a foul. And In my opinion he should learn something from raya
“sackable offense”
Someone needs a nap
LET’S ALLOW THIS MAN DO HIS JOB. HE IS THE CHIEF TRAINER HERE. WE MAY KNOW BETTER THAN HIM BUT WE’VE NOT DONE BETTER THAN HIM FOR THE PAST 20 YEARS.