Arsenal: Has Aaron Ramsey actually delivered?

On Sunday, over ten years after he departed for the allure of the Emirates, Aaron Ramsey returns to Cardiff. But has the Arsenal midfielder ever actually delivered on the inordinate potential he arrived with?

It must be a weird feeling, returning to your boyhood club. The one you grew up in, the one that set you up for your career, the one that instilled so much knowledge and experience and technique and skill during those oh so formative years. It is something that many footballers do not get the chance to do, at least not in the ceremonial fashion in which Aaron Ramsey will on Sunday afternoon.

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Like Jack Wilshere at Arsenal, the player that he would forever be compared with, Ramsey signed with Cardiff City at the age of eight. It wasn’t long until the coaches realised what they had on their hands — Ramsey would be the youngest Cardiff player in history and eventually leave for £5 million, a joint-record for the club that would not be broken for six years. And now, ten years later, he returns to the Welsh capital as the leading light of the club that signed him all those years ago.

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In light of the occasion, it is natural to reflect on Ramsey’s decade in north London. Has it been a successful one? Did he ever vindicate the £5 million shelled out on little more than a wired-armed 17-year-old? It is often these landmark moments and occasions that allow our minds to wander back through the years and survey on what has been achieved and on what may be regretted.

And for Ramsey, I can’t help but feel that this has been a career of what could have been. As is often the case with young, prospective talents in north London, Ramsey saw his time scuppered by relentless injury and fitness problems. It wasn’t just the broken leg, which is obviously the headline problem. The niggling hamstrings, the pulled calves, the month-long absences that actually take two to recover from.

In American football, there is a saying: ‘Your availability is your best ability.’ There are few players in sport that I feel this is more apt for than Ramsey.

When he is available, when he is fit and firing, when he is confident in his physical qualities and his body, there are few players with the same all-around influence as Ramsey, the endless running, the every-blade-of-grass style that ripples through the rest of the team, the all-encompassing midfield performances that inspire and instigate.

But when is he actually available? Ramsey has played more than 2500 league minutes just once in his career. In contrast, the player who he is often compared to, Frank Lampard, never made fewer than 25 appearances in a Premier League season for Chelsea. Remarkably, Lampard, in 15 seasons, Lampard started in 35 or more league games in eight of them, including a run of starting every league game for three seasons straight.

So, the question: Has Ramsey delivered on his potential? The answer, I believe, perhaps harshly, is not. That does not mean that I blame him. But it is the nature of sport. You must play to be useful, and Ramsey simply hasn’t played enough.