Arsenal: Aaron Ramsey Phase Two Cause For Excitement

Arsenal has seen the disappearance of a lot of players that once had a bright future, but with the next phase of Aaron Ramsey under way, he may avoid that group.

Arsenal are in a grand funk right now, and they find themselves questioning who has a future at the club and who doesn’t. Perhaps not surprising, the majority of players in the current first team set up are having their value questioned.

Aaron Ramsey is one who seemed that he would be moving on. His success at Arsenal was so far in the rearview mirror and it was clear that, barring any changes, the system that Arsene Wenger used did the Welshman no favors.

He needed freedom and instead he got either shoved out wide or pushed into a lucrative holding role that required discipline and responsibility.

However, the key phrase up there was “barring any changes” because there actually have been some changes lately. Wenger has turned his usual 4-2-3-1 into a 4-3-3, giving Granit Xhaka a much deeper role while allowing Ramsey and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to play wide roles behind more traditional wingers like Theo Walcott and Alexis Sanchez.

The results have been pretty much exactly what you would expect.

Ramsey has looked far more at home, as has the Ox, and both have shown that, with less need for discipline in these central roles, they are actually becoming more reliable than when they are forced to be responsible.

Sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but when you think about it, what happens is that, by giving these two central midfielders more freedom to play their game, we have discovered that they actually do a lot of what is required for a central midfielder naturally.

And that being said, Ramsey has fallen into a bit of a transitional phase where he is actually finding the Arsenal system to be far more useful than it had been previously. And by useful, I mean far more conducive to what makes him at his best.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

At the Euros, it was just a matter of having a reliable, deep-set midfielder next to him and having cover in front and behind him. The 4-3-3 is now providing the same sort of prerequisites, as he has Walcott in front and Bellerin behind, as well as Xhaka in next to him.

So just like that, Ramsey is getting back into the swing of things. As always, he may take some time getting there, but by the end of the season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ramsey back at his best and ready to ward off any threats to his newfound position.

I was always curious why more effort wasn’t put into maximizing the Welshman. Despite what Piers Morgan would have you believe, Ramsey is massively talented, he just requires a lot to be truly at his best. But The Gunners have always had the resources to get him there.

Maybe he just wasn’t a priority. That would make plenty of sense. Why prioritize a guy who can’t stay healthy and needs more changes when you could just rely on the likes of Alexis and Mesut Ozil to do the heavy lifting?

Next: 5 Players Who Will Love Life Under Allegri

Still though, Ramsey’s 2013/14 carried the team and if that can be brought out again, suddenly the Gunners have even more attacking threats without the need for any new signings.

Home/Arsenal News