Interesting breakdown of Ramsey's new role in the team in the Times:
part 1
part 1
Time for a quiz question. How old is Aaron Ramsey?
Eleven years since he made his debut for Cardiff, into his 11th season with Arsenal, over 300 club appearances and 55 caps for Wales — he’s 27 years old and doesn’t hit 28 until December.
The reason for the focus on his age is that Ramsey is a crucial point in his career. Playing under a new manager in Unai Emery, Ramsey is in the last year of his Arsenal contract and the decision over his future will almost certainly become a talking point this season.
So, following a strong performance in the 2-0 win against Everton, this week’s Game Dissected column analyses Ramsey to see what he offers and why Steven Gerrard once called him “the best attacking midfielder in the Premier League”.
Is Gerrard right?
Gerrard made his comments in 2015 after Ramsey starred in a central role as Arsenal beat Olympiacos 3-0 in the Champions League. Olivier Giroud scored a hat-trick but Ramsey got an assist for the first with a great run and cross into the box.
Talk of the “best” attacking midfielders of recent seasons would certainly include David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Christian Eriksen and, as the graphic below shows, Ramsey ranks well alongside those players when it comes to making goals.
He has ten assists in the league since the start of last season, as many as Dele Alli and Riyad Mahrez and just behind Silva and Eriksen. What is interesting is that, when compared with the four players ahead of him for assists, Ramsey has made far fewer passes in the opposition half, meaning he sees less of the ball which arguably makes his ten assists more impressive.
Also, of the players with ten assists or more Ramsey has the fewest appearances with 30. Eriksen has the most with 43.
I must confess to being slightly surprised at the number of Ramsey’s assists, boosted of course by the two goals he set up against Everton. My perception of the player was that he was a goal threat if, and when, Arsenal’s system (and the quality of their opponents) allowed him to get into the game but if anything was slightly wasteful on the ball. It is interesting that in those 30 games Ramsey has more assists than team-mate Mesut Özil who has eight in 31 games, and also more goals (seven to Özil’s five).
In fact his passing accuracy with those 993 passes in the opposition half is a solid 80.16 per cent, just behind De Bruyne (80.58 per cent) and ahead of Eriksen (79.84 per cent). Özil’s is 84.48 per cent.
Now, a reminder of the need for context when it comes to passing accuracy. Of midfielders to have made more than 1,000 passes in the opposition half since the start of last season those with the best accuracy rating are Fabian Delph (92.47 per cent), who played much of last season at left back, and Mousa Dembele (91.12 per cent) and Ikay Gundogan (89.94 per cent), both very much sitting midfielders who will make passes left and right, what many called possession passes, as well as attacking, forward passes.
Given the forward passes Ramsey tries to play and the fact he is not a holding midfielder, an accuracy of 80 per cent puts him alongside the best (though of course De Bruyne and Eriksen may have a better rating had they not made double the number of passes).
Back to Ramsey’s creativity. The statistic often analysed alongside assists is chances created and this category offers an interesting insight into how Emery is using Ramsey so far this season, as shown in the chart below.
At this stage last season Ramsey had created just three goalscoring chances for his team-mates. The three players mentioned earlier - Silva, De Bruyne and Eriksen - all feature near the top as does Henrikh Mkhitaryan who had a strong start to the season at Manchester United.
This season after six games Ramsey’s chances created is an impressive 11, just outside the top five which again includes Silva and Eriksen (kudos to Ryan Fraser for an impressive start to this campaign) - so why is the Arsenal man creating more?
The answer is the new manager.