Arsenal: Bit-part Aaron Ramsey a daring, yet admirable, game

Arsenal seem to be suddenly interested in severely limiting Aaron Ramsey’s play. It’s a really, really bold move, but it’s admirable.

I’m not going to bite on all the “Aaron Ramsey is the rat” and “Aaron Ramsey to be sold” rumors. Arsene Wenger defended him and made it clear that, with Arsenal desperate to qualify for the Champions League through the Europa League, the Welshman was simply being saved for AC Milan on Thursday.

Of course I want to raise an eyebrow in quizzical fashion, but I won’t. Because I trust that Ramsey and Arsenal aren’t having a falling out as I type.

Instead, if we are to take Wenger at face value, which is another question I ask myself, the idea is that Ramsey was being saved to be of maximum efficiency in the Europa League against a suddenly stalwart AC Milan.

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On the one hand, this is incredibly brilliant. We have been piss-poor in the Europa League, mainly against Ostersunds FK, and that comes down to not having any real goal threats. Ramsey is a consistent goal threat and having him at full-strength for that match is going to be a massive boost.

You may ask why he wasn’t taken out early against Manchester City with the match out of hand and I wouldn’t put up too much of a fight, suffice to say that this may have been the plan all along, to allow Ramsey the week before the Round of 16.

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Ramsey’s injury problems, especially in congested fixture lists, is well known. He typically doesn’t stay healthy when called upon twice a week and, while this has not always been properly prepared for, Wenger may be making up for lost time by doing that here. Again, it’s bold, but can you fault this decision making?

If you can, your logic is probably that he is indispensable, deserves better, or has been one of our best players this year, and therefore needs to be out there as often as possible.

This, like the other argument, is hard to dispute. He has been our best player this year, his goal production speaks for itself, and he should be out there every single match when at all possible. No offense to Jack Wilshere, but Ramsey simply brings more to the table.

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If we are going to change things up going forward, though, we have to actually make changes, and this may be Wenger’s idea of necessary change to keep his best players in their best possible fitness.