Ramsey adds a directness to that but also fits in well as a ball playing midfielder. Likewise, we sometimes play a fast counterattacking game. Ramsey’s pace and fitness seem very useful there and his recent improvements in his decision-making have benefited the team in those situations. Not only can Ramsey adapt to the style of play but the position too. Whilst Wenger gets slated for playing Ramsey on the wing in big games away from home earlier in the season he was my MOTM against City away and at home to Chelsea

I have always been one of the few to extol the virtues of our Welsh midfield maestro. Not always has this been entirely fair, for his form at times had been quite dismal. What made my view on him so positive, however, was the knowledge of how good he was before his injury, the belief he would get back to that form, and the hope and faith that Arsene Wenger knows what he is doing. Now, back from the doldrums, open for the world to see, Aaron Ramsey is showing everyone our faith was not misplaced. Whole tomes have been written in recent weeks on the brilliant form of Aaron Ramsey, and with him finally scoring that goal many thought was absent from his game, I feel my two cents might be worth some attention too. So today I will address the Ashburton Redemption of Aaron Ramsey.

Here is something for you. Of all the players in the league to have made more than fifty tackles (and that is a whole lot of players) Aaron Ramsey has the highest success ratio. I remember when Ramsey was slowly coming back from his injury and playing, first for and Cardiff and Nottingham, and later for Arsenal, in a very tentative manner. Not that you can blame him for that: the last time he went for a ball with the same courage he always showed his leg got snapped in half by a player who had taken the newspaper’s descriptions of our weaknesses with too much zeal. After that I can imagine anyone being slightly nervous or less courageous going into a tackle. But not anymore. Now he is the ultimate all action midfielder, running, charging, barging and tackling, such energy and dynamism. Many times this season we Gooners have been shown master classes of how to run the engine room of a midfield. For someone so young it is very impressive and very reminiscent of how Wilshere played in that similar double pivot with Song two seasons ago. A very exciting prospect indeed.

Ramsey and Arteta have looked very good together this season. Arteta is in many ways enjoying something of a second youth, a twilight near the end of his career. He seems faster, more responsive and more hardened than he ever did at Everton (to me). But much of his recent good form has been down to the protection and energy arriving next to him. Ramsey offers so much more in terms of protection than your average DM would, in my opinion. Half the battle in that deep lying midfield role of Arteta is winning the ball and shielding the defence. The other half of the battle is to quickly and efficiently (and if you are really good, offensively) distribute the ball. Ramsey’s energy, movement and technical quality means he is almost always available to be passed to. Our midfield at the moment seem to have an innate understanding of the triangle as a way of playing out of trouble, of effectively retrieving the ball and continuing. With Cazorla, Wilshere and Rosicky the usual suspects in the more advanced roles, we have a tenacity and a technical level which are very rare indeed.

Ramsey’s box to box stylings have to me made the need for a traditional DM totally nonexistent. On a recent podcast I made the somewhat unusual remark that ‘we don’t need a big, well, black guy there anymore’. What I mean by that is that with Ramsey next to Arteta we have all the defensive cover we need, and no longer require a destroyer. Ramsey seems to have regained a lot of body strength in recent months and his success rate in tackles speaks for itself. Combine that with Arteta’s reading of the game and the general tenacity in midfield and we have a very stable double pivot. Look at the champions this season. I don’t think a midfield duo of any one of Cleverley, Jones, Carrick and Anderson is better than what we have to offer. And the recent click in midfield has most certainly had an effect on the defence, and it is largely down to the influence and form of Aaron Ramsey.

Much of the criticism of Ramsey over the last year or so stemmed from a few things. Firstly he was considered to be slow and laboured. In recent months he has shown just how wrong, or at least temporary, that was. Look back at any of the players that had their leg broken in the way Ramsey did. How many of them ever quite got back to their fullest physical potential? Probably not many. Before his injury Ramsey was fleet footed, agile and strong, the result of years of playing rugby, and seemed a player with an almost endless stamina, unusual for someone so young. Even though it seems to have taken him longer to get back to that level, now it seems he has even taken a step beyond it. The Ramsey of recent months has this endless supply of energy, endless supply of running, strength to barge players off the ball and the speed to dribble and create counter attacks. Clearly he has not only recovered fully, with his injury record now a lot better than it was in the first eighteen months after Shawcross, but he and the coaches have gotten his fitness to a whole new level. It is fantastic to see.

The next criticism was that he takes too much time to think, is too slow in distributing the ball and disrupts our flow. This was not an entirely unfair remark to make at the time, and I can imagine how tough it must be for a man who always seemed to be athlete first and footballer second. Not that he is a bad footballer: he just isn’t quite the natural talent some of our other midfielders are. Even at Cardiff and in his early Arsenal days his touch and technique were pretty much spot on but his decision making was always slightly off. That is not a problem: not every player can be a Cesc or a Xavi. In that same vein I think that a comparison with Ray Parlour (which has been made a lot) is interesting. Whilst they share some similarities (endless energy, willingness to work, underrated by the rest of the world) I would like to think Ramsey has the potential to be quite a bit better. Some compare him to other hard working ‘utility’ players, mainly because he can fill in all over the pitch. But to compare him to someone like John O’Shea is an insult. Ramsey is much better than that. I like to make the comparison that a team of eleven Ramsey’s would beat a team of pretty much any player in the PL, apart from eleven Yaya Toure’s (and maybe eleven Ramireses). That to me says a lot.

Back to the distribution. Whilst it must indeed be said that Ramsey is not the fastest thinker in our team, or the most natural playmaker, he has come on leaps in bounds this season. His control in close quarters, cultivated by Wenger playing him on the wing, and his general passing ability are second to none. Both before and after his injury his penchant for long diagonal or cross field passes has been noticeable and a useful weapon, but even the simple stuff he seems very good at. He has a higher passing completion than Cazorla and Wilshere and his passing seems to have gained a level of ambition. Earlier I described how often our midfield makes the triangles and in the past at times Ramsey would just keep playing those, or hold onto the ball too long. He seems more comfortable now, more easy on the ball, and it shows. Many of our finest attacks this season have involved his passing and movement. His decisions have improved too, although, like any young player, at times can still
be called into question. And whilst I would not feel comfortable with Ramsey as the sole playmaker of our side, he has shown many a time that he can be the one making our midfield play tick.

What I like about Ramsey too is his ability to adapt to circumstances. This season sometimes we play the typical Arsenal possession game, around the box, tippy tappy, waiting for an opening. Ramsey adds a directness to that but also fits in well as a ball playing midfielder. Likewise, we sometimes play a fast counterattacking game. Ramsey’s pace and fitness seem very useful there and his recent improvements in his decision-making have benefited the team in those situations. Not only can Ramsey adapt to the style of play but the position too. Whilst Wenger got slated for playing Ramsey on the wing in big games away from home earlier in the season he was my MOTM against City away and at home to Chelsea. His ability to nullify opponents and create stuff as well is excellent. During the season he has also played as RB on occasion when chasing the game. In his Cardiff days that was often where he played, and as we all could see, he looked very good there (for an unfamiliar role). Having that ability to put him there when chasing the game is a phenomenal luxury for Wenger because not only does that give us an extra offensive substitution but it also allows us an attacking outlet in defence, with Ramsey a decent crosser and someone with the energy to make runs from deep. His versatility shows in the way the team interchanges too. Basically when we seem comfortable or when we need a goal his runs from deep and positional changes with Rosicky and Cazorla open up the field for us, and he often shifts wide and allows Cazorla to come inside. This hustle and bustle makes him difficult to mark, and his willingness to run means that even when out of position (something which he does do just a little too much) he will often make up ground in time. This ability of Ramsey to make late runs into the box, to suddenly pop up behind the striker, is reminiscent of Frank Lampard or Cesc Fabregas. What Ramsey doesn’t have yet though, is the ability to finish quite well enough.

And that seems to really be the only valid criticism left. I tweeted yesterday (in jest) that Aaron Ramsey seems to jinx the attack, whenever he shapes up to shoot or in any way apply a final touch it seems to go wrong. Naturally, being Ramsey, he had to prove me wrong. But it doesn’t take away the fact that too often he is wasteful in front of goal. It has not cost us anything this season so far, but it could have, and that would have been a massive shame. Before his injury Ramsey was a better finisher than he is now, with a couple of very fine goals. His strike against Wigan was excellent, using his eyes to distract the keeper before coolly slamming it into the roof of the net. But it is still too much of a rarity. Perhaps the focus of the coaches has been to get him back to basics on the other things since his injury (fitness, passing, touch, vision, position) before working on something like finishing. For a box to box leviathan finishing is not entirely superfluous but neither is it the main priority. I don’t doubt that over time it will improve again. If it does, he truly might be the complete midfielder.

Now, it has all been said before, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t mention it. Ramsey had his leg broken when he was just becoming an Arsenal regular. He was in many people’s eyes on par with Wilshere at that point. To have all that momentum taken away, to no longer trust in your own ability to tackle, to have to work so hard in revalidation and rehabilitation, to get back to fitness… It all takes some doing. For him to be such an effective tackler now, after that leg break, is astonishing. Ramsey has also had a lot of criticism, some vocal and out in the open, and that can’t have helped. Gary Speed, his hero, father figure and mentor, the man who made him Wales captain, killed himself. Then Ramsey was stripped of the captaincy. To go through all that and come out on the other side a better player, an influential player at the age of only 22, is a phenomenal performance. Raymond Verheijen, the controversial fitness coach who worked closely with Wales, described Ramsey as a fantastic captain and a great leader. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders, calm and collected, wise and intelligent. Despite his age I see him working so hard on the pitch and gaining validation from his fellow players. All his ordeals have not managed to break him down. They have, to cite the old cliché, made him stronger. His form over the last few months was, to me, worthy of contention for the YPOTY. And after Cazorla he is my player of our season. His recent new six (or was it five?) contract is a great reward for his form and potential and an exciting sign for the future. And now he has found his part in the side, I think Aaron Ramsey can finally start earning back that redemption after all he has been through. Because four months of form is good, but to earn all these plaudits and his redemption he needs to keep going, keep improving, keep fighting, keep running. But from what I have seen of our Aaron, I would not put it past him to keep doing just that, in the same determined, stoic manner of his. He can be the mainstay of our midfield for the next decade to come, and I think he can be good enough to be the first choice midfielder in a league and CL winning side. It is up to him, Arsene Wenger and the rest of the club to show me my faith, my hope, is not misplaced.