Spot on. But the thing is, if there's a vacated midfield, chances of us playing well and him scoring would be low.So:
Ramsey has been involved in (goal/assist) 44% of our goals this season when playing, the second most influential player is Özil at 27%. Compared to the legendary 13/14 season he's shooting more frequently, shooting more frequently in the box and getting more big chances.
The issues here are that he's shown himself to be a pretty poor finisher in the grand scheme of things, the dodgy hamstrings and the big one: Are the goal contributions worth the vacated midfield?
Ignoreing the last paragaph, he's all set up for a monster season which makes this summer's renewal a pain in the arse. Could easily see him getting a ridiculous wage as we'll have to match all offers. If nobody else tries to sign him I think we could tie him down to something like 120k base.
He makes good late runs too. And I'm really fine with a midfielder that is influential in our attack if he is an AM or a B2B midfielder. But what the stats does not cover is the way Ramsey gets himself involved in our attack. Does he make late runs when our attackers have the ball in the final third, or does he scampers forward while we are still building up our attack?
The latter has happened too frequently and that has also resulted in our poor shape and structure allowing ourselves to roll over and play dead to our opponents. Although I'm suspecting Sanchez did him no favors because when Sanchez went deep and was ball hogging whilst Ramsey made those "late" runs. Anyway, the 13/14 purple patch season and the last game against Everton should be the blueprint for Ramsey going forward. Stay in the middle and play it simple then make a late burst into the box.