Aaron Ramsey says completing his first 90 minutes of the season was ‘difficult’ but is pleased that Arsenal sealed their first points of the season with a 3-1 win over West Ham at the Emirates.
Having started last weekend’s visit to Chelsea on the bench, the Welshman was restored to Unai Emery’s starting line-up as a replacement for Mesut Ozil – who missed the game with an ‘illness’ – and was a bustling and energetic presence in midfield.
The Gunners fought back from Marko Arnautovic’s strike on 25 minutes to seal victory in stoppage time as Danny Welbeck strike added to Nacho Monreal’s leveller and Issa Diop’s own goal.
Speaking to Arsenal Player, Ramsey reflected: “They made it difficult for us in the first half and we struggled to get going really with our attacking side, but then in the second half we created a few opportunities and we managed to take a few of them.
“It’s a new process for us and we had a difficult start and we’re trying to improve every game, so hopefully we can do that and go to Cardiff with a win under our belt.
He added: “It was obviously difficult and it was my first 90 minutes throughout, even including pre-season, so for me I’m glad that I got that in the system and we’re all still progressing every game. It was a bit open at times but I’m just glad we got the win.”
On the new style being implemented by Unai Emery, Ramsey went on: “He wants us to press and press really high up the pitch, so that’s the biggest thing really and then obviously we’re trying to figure it out going forward as well, so hopefully we can combine the two next week and get another win under our belt.
“We found it difficult in the first half and we were perhaps too open at times, but we dug in and stuck to it and that’s all that matters at the end of the day, that we came away with all three points.”
Emery talked about improving the transitions. Hopefully Torreira starts next game. He should be better at positioning himself to kill opposition counter attacks.
The transitions look much better to me already, or at least the players seem to know how they want to build up from the back and hopefully they will get better as season goes on. For last season or two, very often it seemed like there is no clear instruction about how we want to get the ball forward. Usually a CB would pass to his nearest RB/LB, who found himself shut down by the pressing opponent and passed it back to the CB. The CMs weren´t much helpful in this regard as Ramsey was often located very high up… Read more »
I’m talking about opposition transitions where we are all over the place, with players able to carry the ball 50 yards at times, with no pressure.
Torreira is the solution. Guendouzi needs time to grow but I’d pick him and torreira. Xhaka played better today so maybe we give unai time to mould him better
Yeah Xhaka improved in the second half for sure. Lots more improvement needed to really be defensively solid but good enough progress so far.
Xhaka improved because Torreira played. With a proper DM playing it allowed Xhaka the freedom to play as a deep lying midfielder which is his natural role. Long may it continue
Yes. Guendouzi out and Xhaka seemed to looked like a different player. Something for Unai?
Of course Xhaka played better in the second half as with Torreira a proper DM on the pitch he could play his true role as a deep lying midfielder
While I concur that Torreira should start over Guendozi, it’s dubious to put all our defensive eggs in one Uruguayan basket. Each and every player need to smarten up about defending including Xhaka, Ramsey, Bellerin, Mkhi, et all.
Bad habits die hard but let’s hope the players will learn that if they don’t learn to put in a good defensive shift, that could mean a prolonged spell on the sidelines…
Not the best performance but an important win against a good team that also really needed to win this. Hope this win helps the team to gain some momentum, the tough starting fixture list has made the transition period much harder that it might have been otherwise.
At this point in time, the three points is all that matters. The cohesion will come with practice. The next set of games – about 7 of them – gives us ample time to get the new system sorted.
More wins will breed confidence and we’ll move on from there. Koscielny’ imminent return is good news. We need him in that defence before December.
Bustling and energetic performance. He was fucking useless bar a couple of things in the last 15 minutes.
I know that a transition period, which is what we are going through right now can be very frustratinng for fans (and the players themselves) to be honest, but we just have to stick with it and toughen it out…the reward of such stout resolve is what we now see at man city, and even liverpool, both of which have evolved into awesome teams..but it took either of them at least two seasons for the style of playing to become embedded and automated in the players. We will get there, but yes, the learning curve can be extremely frustrating. At… Read more »
“and was a bustling and energetic presence in midfield.”
Heh, just couldn’t help but put a positive spin on a Ramsey performance could ya?
I’m almost beginning to believe it’s an internal joke and trolling by the sight just to get fans to react 😀
If this is directed at me, you might want to check the byline of the article 😉
Rambo needs to work on the weight of his passes. They’re always infuriatingly just slightly behind and one of them caused Monreal’s injury in the first half.
This is why he is not as good as Mesut
Ozil is Shite but so is Ramsey , sell both in January
I think your you described your comment rather than the players
There solution is to play with 12 men. Just add Ramsey as a 2nd #8, play Ozil as #10, and we’re golden.