Morning all.
Just a short post today after reading an interesting article in The Athletic. The Ramsdale v Raya debate is going to go on and on and on until either Raya returns Brentford of if he does join Arsenal on a permanent deal, one of the two leave. All the time either or both make mistakes in a game, the debate pops up again regardless of how good they might have been either side of those mistakes. I find it boring now, Mikel Arteta must do too but it’s an awkward situation he has made for himself and both keepers.
Anyway, Nick Miller and David Alexander, sports writers for The Athletic have come up with a solution which is to play both equally and here’s why.
Yes, Raya is better at home whilst Ramsdale is very good away from home. The full article is available in The Athletic. Here’s an extract:
He (Mikel Arteta) could change things completely, bring Ramsdale back and write the whole thing off as an experiment gone awry. Or he could try rotation. Arteta wouldn’t be the only Premier League manager to do so this season: Jason Steele and Bart Verbruggen have essentially shared keeping duties for Brighton — Steele starting nine games and Verbruggen the other six.
Often, when a club has two goalkeepers of commensurate quality, the theory is that one will play in the league and the other in cups. That’s what Barcelona did in 2014-15 when they signed Claudio Bravo and Marc-Andre ter Stegen; Luis Enrique simply played the former in La Liga games and the latter in cups, including the Champions League, right the way to the final. That worked out pretty well, with Barca winning the treble that season, but logically it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. It’s fairly arbitrary, just a neat-looking way of dividing the playing time between two players, and it could leave one of the keepers with long spells of inactivity.
At Arsenal this season, for example, it’s perfectly plausible that the cup ’keeper could have just one game to play between the final Champions League group game next week and the first knockouts, which start on February 15. That’s two months kicking their heels, with potentially only the FA Cup third-round tie against Liverpool to keep them occupied.
So, what do you think about that idea?
Catch up in the comments.
Bloody frustrating that we had a keeper in Emi Martinez who was much better than both of them.
Absolutely agree Anthony.
Martinez made it clear that if he was not numero uno he wouldn’t stay. No manager or club owner with any self respect could afford to cave in under that sort of threat. A good ‘keeper but in my opinion good riddance.
He was still better than the two we have though Cicero, plus, look at how long he waited around to be number one. I agree that no player should make demands but logic alone suggests he should have been our number one keeper after the FA Cup win.
Rico.
We’ll most likely see, first hand, how he shapes up against one or other of our two on Saturday which on last night’s showing will not in any way be a walk over.
The Villa players worked very hard against City and will have one day less than us to recover. However, they will be on a high and we will need to be at our best to come home with all three points.
A’noon Rico
Interesting article, might have some substance, but doubt it will happen. With statistics you can bend them to come up with whatever result you want. Hence commentators will frame a period ‘last 10 games’, ‘last calendar year’ etc.
What we’ve been doing all season, but failed to do against Luton, is keep the ball away from our keeper. Corners have been an issue for Us for a while, so best route is not to concede corners. When Zinchenko came on against Luton we limited their time on the ball and chances. Zinchenko is liable to silly mistakes late in games, but he is very important to our style of play.
Emi Martinez is old news. Stick some posters of him on the wall if it helps…next to Xhaka…Ozil…RVP…Liam Brady…
I don’t think any game these days a walkover Cicero, not even Luton. Lol
Afternoon Pete, agree on corners and set pieces in general which is weir really because it wasn’t so long ago that was one of our strong points.
Re keepers, I still say change the coach. Posters? They are so yesterday…
Finally it’s officially announced, Arteta has a one much ban for receiving three yellow cards, the third for stepping onto the pitch while celebrating Declan Rice’s winner against Luton. Are the officials deliberately trying to stifle the joy and passion of the moment? With the dead hand of Var hanging over every goal scored and every moment of tension, the life is being sucked out of the game.
As good as Villa played last night, Pep being Pep played 5 players out of position, especially in the midfield. If Arteta keeps it simple and dont try to be Pep 2.0, Arsenal overruns them in the midfield and wins.
The FA/PL are making it up as they go along.
Good results for us tonight, Spurs one nil up finish two one down. Everton beat Newcastle 3 – 0.
Yep, very good.
New post up