To be Ramsey or not to be

Aaron Ramsey

If you would scratch the surface of the Arsenal twitter-verse, you’ll see that just below the relative calm, the fault lines still very much exist. A cacophony which is centred around Ramsey and his red hot form. Here’s me adding my thoughts on currently the best mid-fielder in Europe.

Ramsey’s resurgence has set the cat among the pigeons as far as the legions of Arsenal armchair experts go. Claims and counter claims have being flying at break neck speeds and suddenly his emergence, or his failure earlier, has been the only credential to judge Arsene (which is nonsense). For every tweet/post/bog that claimed the demise of our great manager because he played Ramsey, there are equally that many now which proclaim he is infallible as he kept faith with Ramsey in those dark times.

For the record, this author has always backed Ramsey, mainly because of the consistent and apparent effort put in by AR16 every time he wore the shirt. He never shirked, always available for a pass and tried to make things happen, something to his detriment as he tried to do a lot more than required. But no one has been blind to see that Ramsey was ineffective out wide and clearly struggling with his touch whenever he played in the centre, mostly in the advanced position. But there was, as clearly visible now, a brilliant player somewhere underneath who just needed to throw off the shackles, do the basics right and prosper. He seems to have done that exactly. So kudos to him and kudos to Arsene for sticking by him. Such has his emergence been that he’s not just a mid fielder at the moment, he’s a midfield in his own right. Before Sturridge scored last night, Ramsey had the distinction of being the guy with the most tackles AND the most goals. And the most passes. Mighty mighty impressive.

What’s the problem?

The problem is that all the people who took dogs (pun intended) abuse all that time ago for daring to believe in Ramsey and the manager are dishing it back in equal measure and then some. Some of the criticism directed towards Ramsey was fair, most was unfair and then some was downright ugly. Ramsey was booed, called the choicest of abuse words and many wished he broke his leg again/died etc. It didn’t just stop there, it spilled on to the next most apparent guy- Arsene. And sometimes to Gazidis.

In all of this it’s but natural that many fans will revert back to all those who were super abusive at such dark times with the argument that they don’t deserve to enjoy this spectacular run and so on. While a noble thought no doubt (ha!) it mostly is bringing those fans out to debate (spar!?) who weren’t so openly abusive in the first place, but rather critical-which is fair. The worst abusers were/are never/not the ones to debate. They don’t have the sensibilities for it. The “OYE VENGA” types can’t be reasoned with! If reason would have appealed to them, we’d have no one calling Arsene a c***. Which is just wrong. It is so wrong that it re-defines the entire meaning of wrong. And then some.

Give up the bad feelings and hurt from the saga and just enjoy our team playing Wengerball again. The football for both the goals and the Ozil chance in between, at Swansea away, was text book Wengerball. One touch intuitive passing with lightening counters. They could have been from the year 2003/04 and no one would have batted an eyelid. And the defensive solidity to boot.

Let’s just enjoy the wave we are riding. Enjoy the fact that an erstwhile deeply polarising figure is performing to such heights that his own Master wouldn’t have thought possible. Enjoy the fact that Arsene, a staunch developmental manager, splashed 42 million on a star signing, but in reality one of his young proteges is leading the charge. Enjoy the fact that Manchester United’s grey haired one’s inner child is probably feeling a bit brown, with all that heartburn he would be suffering. And lastly enjoy that smug Arsene seems to be back.Smug Arsene!Till the next time then…