Arsenal: Aaron Ramsey Was Missed Against Southampton
Arsenal had one fairly obvious problem against Southampton in that there was no on in the box. Cue Aaron Ramsey and why the Gunners need him.
Arsenal took care of business against Southampton, but the theme of ‘they were lucky’ was emanating from the match, despite the fact that Giroud’s jersey was ripped in half in the box. Still, there was another pretty obvious problem that the announcers kept pinpointing: Arsenal had no one in the box on most attacks.
Whether it was Lucas Perez or Olivier Giroud in at striker, the Gunners typically had just one person in the box on crosses – Lucas or Giroud. It was an epidemic of pestering the opposing defense but never pestering the keeper. Arsenal fired 17 shots, only two were on target. They weren’t missing by much at times, but they were still missing.
Then there was the matter of crosses. Only eight of their 27 crosses were received as well. Now granted, some crosses were just bad, but some were perfectly workable and just had no one there to field them.
Take for instance the moment of inspiration from Shkodran Mustafi when he bolted all the way down the right touchline, a run that was apparently never picked up by any of his team mates in the middle of the pitch. When he fired in a completely workable ball, there was a grand total of zero people waiting on it.
There are several solutions here, but one is obvious. There has to be some room reserved for Aaron Ramsey. It has often been pinned as a ‘fault’ of the Welshman, but with a proper DM next to him, or even having him wide right, Ramsey will be allowed to make his calling-card move – late runs into the box to pop up in goal-scoring situations.
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There was too little of that against Southampton. Too few late runs into the box to field crosses and penetrating passes. That is what Ramsey does. So many of his goals come from just being in the right place at the right time. When you have these players waiting on a cross, the defense has them marked up, but those late runs often go unnoticed.
There is no reason this game should have taken until that Giroud penalty to be concluded. The attack looked just as powerful as it did against Watford, there was just no extra push to deal with rebounds and turn the ball back towards the net. Ozil looked afraid to shoot again and without Alexis, the offense lacked a lot of their usual punch.
But it’s Ramsey who was missed the most. We just have to wonder where he will fit into the scheme when he returns from injury
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