PL: Southampton vs Arsenal | 10/05/17 | 19.45 BST

[logic DC]

feel like Özil did more than what people say here on A-M, in the first half apart from the few misplaced passes he was the one feeding accurately our most dangerous player at that point in time Chamberlain. he was actually better than Sanchez before he scored and even that goal Özil contributed too.

 

[Batman]

So am I right in thinking Ramsey is picked over Elneny or others because he is white and British so basically you think Wenger is racist? As is anyone who would prefer to have Ramsey starting for us?

I find it extraordinary the lengths people go to critical Ramsey. Well let's look at the stats. This season Ramsey the loser of possession has a higher average pass completion than the possession king Mesut Özil. 87.1 vs 86.6. Ramsey from a deeper position has 8 assists vs Özils 11 (remove the euros it's 4 vs 10). Key passes 1.3 vs 2.6 and most surprising of all bad touches per game 1.6 vs 1.8, Ramsey having less bad touches on average per game than Özil.

All from whoscored for this season, for assists i have removed the euros which conversely would bring Ramsey upto 8 assists. I await the usual that's stats, Ramsey has played less (please bring that argument up because having played less and been injured more one would expect Ramsey to have more mistakes as he builds up match sharpness)

Özil has been awful in his own right. That doesn't make Ramsey any less awful. Also literally nobody has ever called Özil the possession king. Where does that even come from? If the most favorable statisitcs you can find for a player are that he's slightly less awful than another player that 90% of the fanbase is frustrated with who is in the midst of probably the worst season of his career that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of their performances. I mean who is really going to extraordinary lengths?

Person A:"Cancer is bad."

Person B: "You're going to extraordinary lengths to insult cancer, have you seen that stats for AIDS?"

Do you see how dumb the above sounds?

 

[MaraDon]

Xhaka and Ramsey is our best central midfield pairing available. Not even a debate ATM.

there was never a debate, and having mohammed as back up is very interesting too.

 

[bingobob]

Özil has been awful in his own right. That doesn't make Ramsey any less awful. Also literally nobody has ever called Özil the possession king. Where does that even come from? If the most favorable statisitcs you can find for a player are that he's slightly less awful than another player that 90% of the fanbase is frustrated with who is in the midst of probably the worst season of his career that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of their performances. I mean who is really going to extraordinary lengths?

Person A:"Cancer is bad."

Person B: "You're going to extraordinary lengths to insult cancer, have you seen that stats for AIDS?"

Do you see how dumb the above sounds?

Literally that's all people say about Özil is his ability to keep possession. Its his main skill set. His productivity and chance creation. I don't think there are many doubters there in that regard to Özil most bemoan his demeanour and lack of fight and effort off the ball (oddly enough people use stats and compare him to Alexis who runs less than Özil)

So I made the comparison based on one player who is viewed as technically excellent and assured in possession vs someone seen as technically inferior and loose in possession. While whoscored may not be 100% accurate (if someone has a better source I'd gladly compare the two again) it shows Ramsey isn't as bad as some make out.

Your analogy is bad because you're comparing two different awful things. I am comparing players where one is credited with being favoured very good at a specific area against someone who is viewed less favourably in those same areas. Their overall popularity isn't in question or on the board here. That overall outcome is and the stats show Ramsey in the area he is routinely criticised on isn't as bad as made out and is actually on par or better than someone who is viewed as favourable in that area.

 

[TomasDanilevicius]

who is more likely to start against Stoke: Holding or Gibbs?

 

[Batman]

Literally that's all people say about Özil is his ability to keep possession. Its his main skill set. His productivity and chance creation. I don't think there are many doubters there in that regard to Özil most bemoan his demeanour and lack of fight and effort off the ball (oddly enough people use stats and compare him to Alexis who runs less than Özil)

So I made the comparison based on one player who is viewed as technically excellent and assured in possession vs someone seen as technically inferior and loose in possession. While whoscored may not be 100% accurate (if someone has a better source I'd gladly compare the two again) it shows Ramsey isn't as bad as some make out.

Your analogy is bad because you're comparing two different awful things. I am comparing players where one is credited with being favoured very good at a specific area against someone who is viewed less favourably in those same areas. Their overall popularity isn't in question or on the board here. That overall outcome is and the stats show Ramsey in the area he is routinely criticised on isn't as bad as made out and is actually on par or better than someone who is viewed as favourable in that area.

Fair enough. I personally have never thought of Özil as a possession player. He's too weak physically for that to be the case and neither ourselves since he's been here nor the Real teams he played in have been particularly great in possession. I feel that a lot of our supporters and pundits are stuck in the age of Fabregas where we really were a great possession team which we no longer are. To me Özil's strengths when he's truly at his best are vision and weight of pass. He certainly is capable of keeping the ball in possession but in the PL I would say that his lack of fight and physicality is a hinderance in that regard, especially compared to someone like a Fabregas who simply doesn't lose the ball even now.Now with all that said that is why I thought that comparing Ramsey to him was fruitless as a defense because I'm not of the opinion that Özil is particularly great in those areas. I can see what you were getting at though.

For me when we're talking about Ramsey technically I'm not going to dispute the stats you presented. Ok he's been negligibly better than a struggling Özil in a couple of measurable areas. Where I find a flaw is that you're ignoring what there are not statistics for; namely the observable difficulties he has with basic technical requirements.The fact is that he has a habit of messing up what should be very basic actions for a footballer. I remarked on a moment when we were in attack and the entire pace of the attack was ruined by Ramsey having to come to a dead stop to receive the ball and get it under control followed by a separate motion to turn and another to make a pass. 9/10 professional footballers can do what it took him 2 or 3 steps to do in one motion. Outside of Mertesacker I think all of our defenders can do it. By the time he got to where he wanted to go some of his options were gone and the defense had precious time to regroup and organize. There's not a statistic for that but when you see it you understand how it hurts the team. This happens numerous times in the course of a match. Think about how many times the potential for chances is snuffed out over the course of a season because a professional football player can't do something that he should have had down at the academy level.

Özil for all his flaws does not handicap an attack in the same way that Ramsey's technical limitations do. Again, I think the idea that I want Ramsey to fail or that I have a bias against him outside of what I see him doing that hurts the team is silly. I don't want any Arsenal player to fail or perform poorly because it hurts the team when they do. I just take issue with people ignoring what I an clearly see with my own 2 eyes match after match. What I've seen from Ramsey since this change in formation is much of the same: Good runs coming to nothing because of poor finishing or poor decision making on his part, a horrendous first touch leading to giveaways or slowing down attacks and a bunch of gesticulating and calling for the ball preceding the aforementioned. The only area where I've seen any improvement whatsoever is in the system absolving him of some defensive responsibility so that him vacating his position to make ultimately fruitless runs is not as costly. That is the system though, not anything he's doing. I just am not of the opinion that if an external influence is masking a glaring flaw that we should give the player credit for it when he's not actually done anything.