Aaron Ramsey's New Position Is Giving Arsenal Vital Balance
He may not like playing there, but Aaron Ramsey's new position on the right of Arsenal's midfield is giving the Gunners vital balance at the crucial moment of the season. The Welshman is allowing manager Arsene Wenger's team to enter games with a more stable and solid structure.
Ramsey is also allowing Mesut Ozil, Wenger's current chief creative force, the freedom to roam the pitch and play where he does his best work. It's the kind of role that belonged to Ramsey last season.
He was Arsenal's central attacking influence during most of the 2013/14 campaign. Ramsey's well-timed runs into the box and greater composure led to 16 goals as the ex-Cardiff City prodigy assumed the mantle of team talisman ahead of record signing Ozil.
TOP NEWS
Madrid Fines Players $590K 😲
'Mbappé Out' Petition Gaining Steam 😳
Star-Studded World Cup Ad 🤩
Ramsey's stunning season stood as a timely reminder of everything good about Wenger's reign. Specifically, it endorsed the manager's enduring faith in the promise of youth and his patience to let players reach their potential.
But in truth, Ramsey's transformation actually started one season earlier. He wasn't anywhere near as prolific, or even a regular starter in 2012/13.
Yet that campaign seemed to underline Ramsey's comeback from the horrific injury that hit the pause button on his tremendous early promise in 2010. Two seasons of struggle followed, during which a player who had his leg broken in the Arsenal cause was often booed and criticised by his own club's supporters. Ramsey's treatment during this period plumbed new lows even for modern football fans.
But as he so often does, Wenger kept faith. He bet that Ramsey's immense natural talent was still there and needed only a bit more time to come back to the surface.
The first step was game time, along with the player's own willingness to put the work in. That meant regularly finding a place for Ramsey, even if it involved moving him away from his natural spot in the centre of midfield.
During 2012/13, Ramsey saw time on the right as both an auxiliary forward and supporting right-back. Those experiences served both player and club well. Wenger has used Ramsey's utility skills in a key role during the last two games.
Both were Premier League wins, 4-1 at home to Liverpool, followed by the ugly 1-0 triumph over Burnley. Despite beginning each game on the flanks, Ramsey made significant contributions to both wins.
He provided two assists against Liverpool. They were followed by decisively netting the only goal at Turf Moor.
After the latter game, Sky Sports pundit and true Gunners legend Thierry Henry noted how Ramsey made his feelings clear about his new position, during an interview for Sky's Saturday Night Football (h/t SkySports.com):
"He said, and we clearly understood because he said it two or three times, that he doesn't like it much playing on the right of midfield. But this will do a job for the team.
The run they are on is because they are doing things they don’t like, but they do it for the team.
"
By playing on the right, Ramsey is certainly doing something vital for this team. The most obvious is the shape he's allowing the Gunners to adopt.
Against Burnley, Wenger's men lined up in a 4-4-1-1 look, with Ozil hovering behind lone central striker Olivier Giroud. It's the formation Wenger's teams should always play, the fluid shape he's most comfortable with.
Ramsey's made it possible because of the discipline he's shown on the right flank. He's often hugged the touchline to double up with raiding full-back Hector Bellerin.
Ramsey's always given Bellerin an option, but he's also safeguarded the young Spaniard's runs forward. Finding wide players willing to track back and provide defensive cover is a challenge for every top team.
Thankfully, Ramsey has always been a worker. It was sheer hard work that got him back into this team when his career appeared to be floundering.
He's now perhaps the only option with the energy and endeavour for the demands of playing out wide. Danny Welbeck can do it, but he's needed to cover Giroud while Lukas Podolski, Yaya Sanogo, Joel Campbell and Chuba Akpom are out on loan.
Theo Walcott usually plays on the right, but tracking back has always been a foreign concept to the Cheetah-fast attacker. The brittle England international has also been consigned to the bench for some time now.
Similarly, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain would probably be starting if he could stay fit long enough. Like Walcott, though, Chamberlain's effort defensively remains suspect.
It's Chamberlain's injury and Welbeck returning from the recent international break less than fully fit, that probably precipitated the need for Ramsey's move. Yet the way he's stuck to the task out wide suggests it could have longer-term benefits.
Ramsey hasn't just been a static figure on the wing. In fact, he's been most effective whenever he's ghosted off the flank and made late runs centrally.
His movement between the lines has been eerily reminiscent of another former Gunners great, maybe not one you'd automatically think of as a comparison.
Yet watching Ramsey's movement against Liverpool and Burnley, it was easy to be reminded of Freddie Ljungberg. Clever off-the-ball movement and a tireless work rate defined the flamboyant Swede.
Like Ramsey, Ljungberg started life as a central midfielder; that's how he first came to Wenger's attention. But he was eventually moved to the right side to balance out the formation.
But Ljungberg, for all his forward running and tracking back out wide, was at his best when he popped up in central areas, making a late run to latch on to a smart pass. His movement was just one more X-factor for opponents to deal with against a team built on the premise of imaginative brilliance.
As Ljungberg ghosted between markers from various angles, "left winger" Robert Pires drifted into the middle, supporting striker Dennis Bergkamp rotated to whichever positions gave him the best angle for a defence-splitting pass, while centre-forward Thierry Henry often took up Pires' spot on the left flank.
Trying to track this amoeba approach to attacking football was next to impossible when Arsenal were at their best. Wenger has spent years trying to recreate the formula only to slip into more regimented styles of play.
The missing ingredient has been balance. Ramsey the right winger is helping to provide it.
His movement from the flank into the middle helps Arsenal outnumber teams centrally. It also lets Ozil and Santi Cazorla, another outrageously gifted schemer, switch positions.
Specifically, Ozil has more freedom because he needn't worry about holding his position as much as he might out wide, where wanderlust is the biggest enemy of structural integrity.
Cazorla and Ozil can also play in the same starting 11, often a sticking point for the Gunners, because of the work Ramsey is doing on the right.
Once he moves out of the No. 10 spot, maybe Ozil drops deeper, while Cazorla moves over to the left to cover the space vacated by Alexis Sanchez, another worker bee out wide, who's come off that flank for a raid through the middle.
The shape shifts, the patterns change. That's just the essence of Wenger's football philosophy.
But none of it would be possible without a runner as disciplined and industrious as Ramsey out wide.
Players like him make balance possible. Wenger made that clear when he pinpointed what the performances of defensive midfielder Francis Coquelin have meant for this team's success, per the club's official site:
"First of all he’s shown his individual quality winning the ball and passing it quickly, and he’s very strong in the challenges. He also contributes to the balance of the team and that’s very difficult to measure. You know that the balance of the team sometimes depends on one player who has some characteristics that the others don’t. He looks like he has hugely contributed to that.
"
But Coquelin isn't the only one doing his bit to put Arsenal on an even keel. Ramsey's forays on and from the right are proving just as significant.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
