Can we show ‘cojones’ and beat Watford? Do we play Ramsey? by Konstantin Mitov
Hello lovely Arsenal people! A nice 3pm game on Saturday sees us welcome a certain Watford team at the Emirates. After last seasons defeat at Vicarage Road, Troy Deeney kind of put on a special meaning on this game by labeling that our team lacks balls.
The pain is that there is a bit of truth to this, but once you say something like this it puts a bounty on your head. This alone should be motivation enough to beat the hornets, and a victory means leapfrogging them in the table and knocking on the top 4 door.
Successive wins are breeding some confidence, but we are still a liability in defense. We have the quality to beat teams like Watford, but will we do it? We are over-reliant on scoring more than the opposition, but can we put a solid defensive performance?
I still believe part of the defensive problems come from the lack of help from midfield, and speaking of it, the Aaron Ramsey contract breakdown news broke out and Emery failed to deny them. Some rumours even suggest that Emery had the veto over Arsenal withdrawing the contract.
Very interesting indeed if true, as it’s just a rumour, but it shows demand from the boss. After all’ managers are power-hungry people. Wenger was, Pep is, Conte at Chelsea told Costa it’s my way or the highway, Jose at United is the latest example with Pogba. After all, if results don’t come, Emery will be gone, not the players. Perhaps he’s thinking that we could get a proper winger and spend Ramsey’s wages on that. He implied on his press-conference about players getting his ideas, and if Ramsey doesn’t fit them, then he goes.
We’ve tried Ozil on the wing and Ramsey as a number 10 but it hasn’t really worked. For me we either drop Aaron in CM, or he doesn’t start. If I have to compare Ramsey and Ozil, the Welshman has won us 2 FA cups and I think he is more valuable to us than the German but not as a number 10.
The reason we are here is because of many years of bad contract management (good riddance Ivan) and although we’re trying to be more ruthless lately it will take time. No other top club allows key players to leave without recouping major money for them. Ronaldo was resold for practically the same value he was bought, even though he’s in his thirties. Coutinho was sold for ridiculous money, and so was Dembele from Dortmund. And by the way, Nacho, Cech and Welbeck are also in their final year.
Anyway, the question for me now is, do we start Ramsey? I’d drop him for Iwobi on the wing and Mesut going back to the number 10 role. I want players focused on Arsenal. The squad needs to build a spine and it has to be build around players whose at least mid-term future is at Arsenal. Right now we’re relying heavily on our front three, but it can’t get us through games forever.
I’ve repeated this like a broken record, but either we fit a system that suits the players we have, or we look for new players. The question is how much do we trust Emery and how much will now ‘100% owner’ Kroenke give him in the market? Nobody knows, but Ramsey or not, I want a victory against Watford and a return to Champions League football next year. That’s me done. See you in the comments.
Konstantin