Arsenal, as a football club, have seen wholesale changes since the turn of the year – from Alexis Sanchez‘s sketchy switch to Manchester United to Jack Wilshere finally leaving the Emirates and Ivan Gazidis quitting as CEO out of the blue. And soon, Aaron Ramsey is set to follow this trend.
The show goes on for the Gunners with all the changes on and off the pitch. Unai Emery had a good squad to which he has made additions like Bernd Leno, Sokratis Papasthatopolous, Stephan Lichsteiner, Lucas Torreira and young Matteo Geundouzi in the summer to make it stronger. With all the changes ringing in, the mentality at the club has changed and the Londoners have gone on a 13-match unbeaten streak since the opening two defeats against Manchester City and Chelsea.
Ramsey is a decent guy who gave his all for a decade to Arsenal and pushed for legend status with a couple of cup final goals.
His agent is an attention-seeking money grabber who deserves nothing from this situation.
Hope we can all agree on this much.
— Dan Critchlow (@afcDW) November 2, 2018
The Gooners should be grateful to their previous boss Arsene Wenger for all the silverware and glory days, but convincing Mesut Ozil to sign a contract extension before he left the club would be one of the highlights of his long tenure.
The Emirates outfit, on the other hand, been very poor in contract negotiations and extensions in recent years which have let players like Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain, Ramsey, Alexis Sanchez, Ozil, Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck run their contracts into the final year with the club.
The club continue the same saga of contract extensions with Ramsey, who is the longest serving player for the club in this squad. His experience, his natural ability and his crucial goal scoring has also helped his side win two FA cups. The Welshman recently informed in his interview that:
“Hopefully somebody will come up and tell me why. I’ll accept that if there’s a reason. We all know that the contract was taken off the table. I’m not sure exactly why because a few weeks before we sort of agreed and I was ready to sign.
Something happened, I am not sure exactly what, but that contract is no longer there, or nothing’s on the table. I just have to get my head down, work hard and try and help this team as much as I can now.”
This indicates that Emery’s side are ready to let him leave on a free this summer and have different plans. But this wasn’t the case initially, when the new gaffer wanted to build his squad around the Welsh international and considered him one of the most important of his five captain strategy.
Meanwhile, Alex Iwobi has signed a new deal with the North Londoners and is backed up by the Spanish boss. Emery has a healthy headache of selection between Iwobi and Ramsey. But with the form that the Nigerian is in, has kept the midfielder out of the starting XI.
There's a pattern here. From right to left, they left one by one. + Wenger and Wilshere also left at the same time. Now it's Ramsey then Jenko will also leave. W pic.twitter.com/gmw1i2Prjn
— . (@regixta) November 2, 2018
The former Sevilla boss is a modern manager and has not hesitated to bench or substitute the star players at the club when the game has demanded a change in style or just due to under-performance. The gaffer comes with a mentality of giving equal chances to all the members of the squad. Ramsey’s contract situation is also talk of the town which justifies the Spaniard’s selection of Iwobi over him. The Nigerian has also improved significantly since last year by getting involved in all the good that team does on the attacking front, plus the work rate to retain the ball once possession lost is noticeable not only with the winger but with the whole team in the way they press.
It seems to be a very healthy relation between the boss and the central midfielder who have nothing but respect for each other. Emery was always publicly vocal that Ramsey was a part of his plans and he looked forward to working with him.
“I spoke with him (Ramsey) last week,” said the ex-PSG boss. “The most important thing for me with Aaron is, his spirit, his quality, his confidence, his focus to us in training and in matches like today.
“He played for 20 minutes against Crystal Palace, he played with this spirit. He’s focused with us, with the training and in every match like today also. He is working very well.”
The withdrawal of contract by the North London outfit has been taken well by the player suggested his boss and he will focus on Arsenal’s performance on the pitch. According to the public statements made by both the parties shows an intent of mutually agreeing to not sign a new contract. The Gunners’ faithful know that the box-to-box midfielder is Arsenal through and through and parting ways with him is going to be more painful than Wilshere.
https://twitter.com/aliIadiere/status/1058316841473466368
On the other-hand the likes of Liverpool, Juvenuts, Barcelona and AC Milan seem to be eager to get the Welshman as a free agent. Only positive about this saga is the dressing room environment is at its best with all the wins and no bad blood between the player and the club. If this is a planned move by management keeping few targets in mind to replace Ramsey, it’s better they close on these deals before he leaves the club.
