Arsenal fans may still be basking after Saturday’s last-gasp comeback win against Aston Villa but Aaron Ramsdale has warned his teammates they can’t afford to be so defensively sloppy in future matches.
Lapses in concentration were a theme from the defeat to Manchester City that carried over to Villa Park as Unai Emery’s side punished the Gunners twice before the break.
First Oleksandr Zinchenko gave away possession allowing Ollie Watkins to score on the counter inside five minutes and later in the half a failure to close down space and men meant Philippe Coutinho had plenty of time to take a touch in the Arsenal box before finding the net.
It left Mikel Arteta’s team with a mountain to climb in the second half and while the points were eventually secured, Ramsdale wants lessons to be learned.
Asked by Viaplay whether the win was all the more enjoyable because of the comeback, Ramsdale said:
“Erm…for me, no. It’s probably one of the worst ways we can win because we pride ourselves on defending and keeping clean sheets from number 9 to number 1 and the staff.
“But of course, it’s an amazing feeling now we’re in the dressing room. There will be some truths spoken in the week about how we can improve and what we need to do better in the coming weeks because different games, if we don’t show that level of performance in the second half, a 2-1 or 2-0 headstart for the opposition team and there will be no way back.”
– Vi gir bort to mål, sier Arsenal-keeper Aaron Ramsdale til @ViaplayJonas.
Sisteskansen er fornøyd med hvordan laget kjempet seg tilbake i kampen og sikret tre poeng mot Aston Villa. pic.twitter.com/O3lTJR0ctd
— Viaplay Fotball (@ViaplayFotball) February 18, 2023
He added: “I’m exhausted. I’m not a massive fan of these early kick offs but I don’t know if I’m mentally drained or emotionally drained or just tired because of the early start but what a way to end the day.
“Obviously, we’re delighted that we’ve got the points and four goals but there are lots of things to improve on.
“They’re a great team, don’t get me wrong, and it’s a tough place to come but we kinda gifted them their goals with giveaways [of the ball] and things like that.
“The way we’ve bounced back from the first half and giving them the goals is delightful.”
Just a boyhood Gooner scoring his first Arsenal goal 🤩 pic.twitter.com/J2dL6AkpWr
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) February 19, 2023
Ramsdale reserved special praise of Zinchenko, who despite being at fault for the first goal, made amends with his first strike in Arsenal colours to level the match at 2-2.
The Ukraine international didn’t dwell on his moment in the limelight, instead racing back to the halfway line beckoning teammates to get on with the game in search of a winner.
“He brings a completely different dimension to our team,” said the keeper.
“He allows us to play in a way which we want to. He’s been there and he’s done it, he’s got four out of five Premier Leagues, so he knows what it takes to win.
“He’s been brilliant and you see the passion he’s got, he’s only been here a couple of months but he’s a huge part of our group.”
Remember when we pinned Chelsea in their own half for the most comfortable 1-0 ever? Turns out they’re just shit this season. 😔
600m well spent 👍
Holy hell, I don’t generally look at mid-table teams’ results but just checked and those guys haven’t won in any competition since 15th Jan, and have only had 2 wins in the league since 16th October. Wowsers… you need special talent to be this bad with that kind of budget
It’s their own stupid fault for selling us their best player.
It’s the least they could have done after Stealing Mudryk from our lap and all the great things they’ve gone on to do since.
Speaking of whom, if he wanted to go to the second best club in London he really should fire his agent for not telling him it’s Fulham
They are such a joke honestly. Problem is I think we all know deep down that they’ll replace Potter and eventually land on a formula. They have too many good, young players to remain as bad as they are. The chubby American will throw some turd at the wall and it will stick, mostly down to probability rather than planning.
Hopefully they will run out of money before that happens
Yes, they certainly are at the moment. It seems to me to be a re-run of the early days of Comrade A’s ownership. I recall that they were buying so many players back then that they had around 30 or so (and not all youngsters) out on loan at one time. However, as well all know after a while they did get their act together and proceeded to blow the rest of the PL away – including several painful encounters for us. Their new owner obviously wants to show that he can do anything the previous one could, hence the… Read more »
Agreed they may get their act together. But I don’t expect them to dominate the league the way they did during the early Mourinho days, back then they were the only ones investing in players the way they were. Currently the investment has balanced out. If they improve they’ll only make the title challenge interesting. Hopefully they implode before then.
Oh give them a break can’t you give them a chance to spend at least a billion first?? How do you expect them to build a team??
Patience and skill?
Some perspective here. Thoroughly enjoyable as the win was, can’t help being worried about the defence. It has seemed shaky in the last few matches. Hope MA and co can fix it soon
1 reason could be Partey being injured, he helps us so much especially on transitions and he clearly wasn’t fully fit for Everton and Brentford. 2nd reason is we have a very young team and there are bound to be moments in the season where the form drops a bit, Saliba being a prime example atm. Finally, teams are playing us for a second time now. They will have a stronger understanding on how we play and would have worked on how to exploit our weaknesses.
Yes, that’s a point about Partey. We haven’t been able to compensate for his (fairly frequent) absences very well.
We are conceding several goals through pretty basic errors currently so we need to tighten up the defence some how. We got away with it against Villa but not against City and it’s an unnecessary problem if it continues to happen.
Yes, we haven’t been able to compensate for his (fairly frequent) absences very well.
We’re obviously conceding several goals through pretty basic errors currently so we need to tighten up the defence some how. We got away with it against Villa but not against City and it’s an unnecessary problem if it continues to happen.
It will be interesting to see how the reverse PL fixtures go. Top teams should have the quality and options to vary their gameplan the second time around if/as necessary though.
I think the first Villa goal shows how individual errors alone are rarely the cause of conceding (a goalkeeper’s howler the obvious exception). Against Villa, of course Zinchenko should not lose the ball, but it is very far from a dangerous position. But there’s no one remotely in a position to challenge the cross (that might be Partey’s absence, which doesn’t allow Gabriel to cover as much space as normally). Then there’s a brilliant pass (because very few will be that perfect) and a super take by Watkins for which Saliba is slightly out of position. The Villa striker then… Read more »
White never ran back for the first goal. Casual jog.
The goal KDB scored against us was good. But the goal is also massive when it’s empty.
Yep – Partey has a bit of Gilberto about him in how he so often breaks up attacks in the most unfussy way. Defs missed that on Sat. But there’s also been an unfortunate combo of Ben, Willy and Big Gab showing jitters/brainfarts in recent games.
Good (potentially great!) players all, but Mik needs to stamp out this recent Mustuffiness asap!
Yes, Zinchenko alone in these last two matches had a couple of turnover howlers that led to goals (if I’m recalling City correctly- mostly have blocked it out).
He is top quality, just needs to get back to taking a little more care when he’s under pressure in our third, and that’s 2 in 2 goals against off the books and a pretty different couple of matches.
Spot on. I absolutely loved the win on Saturday: It was a crazy game and we finally came out on top. But… The overall performance wasn’t great. We were awful in the first half and defended like my grandson’s under-11 reserves. We can’t afford to keep conceding soft goals like that and win the title. And Arteta has a big decision to make about Nketia now: our number 14 can’t hit a barn door with a banjo right now. For the second game on a row he could have scored a hat trick but got nothing. His finishing has become… Read more »
It wasn’t a quality performance in terms of the football played, pretty poor defending again and, let’s be honest, a fluke goal, but it was a very “gutsy” performance nevertheless and the team kept going to the last minute – literally – as they did against Utd at The Emirates. We must tighten up the defence, cut down the errors etc. for sure, but the three points against Villa should provide that boost in confidence that was desperately needed after the preceding three PL games. Clearly Eddie is not scoring as he did earlier, although he’s getting the chances, so… Read more »
The reshuffle will come rather soon, as on Friday we will learn our opponents in the Europa league, and that means two more matches in our March fixtures: 6 games in 19 days. 8 games in April if we go through to the quarter finals.
Managers tend to seem more worried when players don’t create any danger than when they have a dry spell. Eddie will stay in for another couple of games if he doesn’t score.
Nail on the head re Zinny mate ! Thats where your central defensive jitters come from !Gabriel is also playing 2 positions at centre back and full back & has not got the cover so gets dragged across leaving Saliba to cover the middle but that’s why Villa got their first Natural tendency when your fellow centre back gets dragged out wide is to narrow the gap between you and that’s what leaves that long pass space we’ve struggled with this season I live Zinny as a baller and his plusses outweigh his negatives BUT teams see that gap as… Read more »
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Aaron you were class at the weekend mate.
Young team, working on how to improve. Hopefully the only way is up!
And most of us would dusagree and say we are very happy with that win, one of the best ways to win!
Something good is clearly brewing at Arsenal. I see a mental toughness that was lacking in the club in the Wenger teams after the dismantling of the Invincibles. Take ’07-08 season as an example. Arsenal was, without doubt, the best team in the EPL. But Eduardo’s leg break at Birmingham in early February brought a title charge to a slow, painful halt. Gallas threw his tantrums, players wilted, Arsene tried to put a brave face, but 5 consecutive draws followed and United stormed past us. From that season, the narrative of Arsenal’s mental fragility was born. The following years did… Read more »
Thanks for bringing up ‘that’ game mate. I’m going to have to book another therapy session now.
The karma of history: Birmingham being where the title was lost in 2007, in 2023 may have been the decisive recovery on our way to the title…
Fabregas scored with a penalty with a broken leg against Barcelona.
Excellent post mate
3 minutes of elation at the end following 90+ mins of bloody torture. I’ll take it and loved the moments as much as anyone but ultimately Rambo is right. We have to defend better because it won’t always pan out like that…starting with Leicester. The get a pass this weekend though because it was a game off the back of some rocky form/confidence and they needed to grind something out. I remember the invincibles having a ropey period around the same time in 2005 where they drew some games in a row and weren’t playing particularly well. They beat Southampton… Read more »
It ain’t a cliche (for nothing) that ‘defences win titles’. Great to score 4, but it’s those brick-wall, miserable away games where we stubbornly hold out and nick it 1-0 in the last 3 mins that get us those ‘stolen’ points which, ultimately, make the difference in May.
You see Ramadale was fucked off at FT
Well, we have conceded five goals in a couple of games – several of which were down to errors rather than the opposition – which isn’t what we became used to earlier in the season. Hopefully though we can recover that robustness.
He’s right, of course, and it would be a lot easier on the nerves and heart if we controlled the games better. Those last few minutes were extraordinary though, I think I’ll always remember them. I re-watched the match on Sunday and even though I knew the result I could hardly believe we would win.And Emi Martinez……..hahahaha!😂😂
Agree with Ramsbo 5 goals conceded in our last 2 games is bad, i would be happy for a 0-1 win at Leicester but can’t see it, yeh can see us win but can see us conceding, although Saliba hasn’t been playing that bad recently given the upgrade on our defense since hes come in but he has played in all games this season, a rest and Tomi coming in for next 2 games maybe..