Aaron Ramsdale was keen to accentuate the positives after Arsenal’s 0-0 draw with Brighton although he admits that the Gunners struggled for fluency on the ball in difficult conditions.
Speaking to Sky Sports, the goalkeeper also touched on where he needs to improve, what Arteta said at half time and his return to the England set-up.
On a decent point in the circumstances…
I think coming here with the way that Brighton have started and the conditions of the game, we can be happy with a point. Personally and collectively, the performance needs to be better, especially with where we want to get to. To come away 0-0, another clean sheet, it’s been a great month for us and we’re looking up now.
On how Brighton made it difficult…
Their pressing game is top, to be honest. They go man-to-man and then even when you try and go long, there are three big lads at the back, it’s so hard getting a ball over the top and obviously, the wind was picking up today so it was quite hard to reach over the top, it’s got to be an inch-perfect ball to somebody’s feet. the way they press, it’s proper intensity. They stifled us but we need to try and find ways to get out of that. That’s what we’ll continue to work on on the training pitch. Hopefully, we’ll overcome this and next time a game like this comes around, we’ll get the win.
On what Arsenal were missing…
I think it was just a difficult game. Brighton made it really hard for us. You have to give credit to them. They didn’t make it easy, like I said, their pressing was top. There’s got to be ways we get around that. Last week, the game was so high tension and emotional, I don’t think we took our foot over the gas or that we particularly underperformed, a point is a point.
On what Arteta said at half time…
Just to show a bit more composure and determination on the ball. I think we made it a little bit harder for them. I thought we defended our box well all game. The way we’ve got to do it [improve] is on the training pitch. We’ve tweaked a few things that made us better at playing out but it was a difficult day. A point is a point.
On him having to stay focused…
There were lots of efforts on goal which thankfully were off target. There were a couple towards the end, where I’ve had to do my job, hopefully, I’ve done that. Especially with the rain and sometimes not being involved in the game that much, I have to be concentrating. I have to give credit to the whole team for working hard, that’s three clean sheets in four games. We can take positives out of today, it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s a gritty result, we could have easily crumbled and let Brighton get the win but we showed heart and passion and were resolute.
On three clean sheets in four games…
I’ll take it. I’d prefer if it was four out of four but three wins, a draw, three clean sheets, I can ask for much more. Hopefully, I can tidy myself up performance-wise. My kicking today was not great, below-par. If I can tidy that up, I can really tie my game together and be happy every time after the game.
On a return to the England squad…
It’s something that I was hoping would happen but you never know. When I got the call, it was another proud moment for myself. There was hard work on the training pitch to get myself into the team and into the spotlight for Gareth to pick me. Now, whatever happens, next week, I’ll go and enjoy it.
On collecting 10 points from 12 in the last month…
We had a tough start. Nobody hides away from that. We played a newly promoted team on the first game of the season who made it difficult, we’ve had a lot of complications at the start of the season that we’re not looking on any more because we’re looking forward and then we faced two of the best teams in the league. We’ve turned a corner with four good results and you can start to see a structure of the team, one that is gelling together on the training pitch and on the pitch.
If we play this way in more games, piling pressure on our goal and defense, gradually the team will lose confidence. The front line is struggling to hold play when pressed by the opponent. This needs to be sorted urgently.
I’ll advocate again, I think pepe deserves a shot at striker. Better in possession than auba and also better in he air while still offering that direct threat. This was a stinker from auba.
Don’t forget how good Auba was last week, and how good our entire attacking unit was. This was an off day, nothing more. We need to limit these and ultimately cut them out altogether, but the team knows that already. We weathered the storm and didn’t lose. We’ll be better next game.
it’s not that he didn’t try today – he worked hard but he cannot hold the ball up and link play and odegaard was very sloppy too. nothing was sticking when it went forward and we kept giving it back to brighton and inviting pressure.
people also seem to be ignoring the fact that the conditions were awful and brighton didn’t exactly create much either for all their huff and puff.
On point, conditions were awful and I think it contributed to an extent of our misplaced passing or poor touches. Playing 90 mins in pouring rain is a torture in itself. I just hope some players don’t become sick after this.
I will take the point and clean sheet.
Laca should have started. But Auba played well last week. Arteta should have known the different type of game we would get. Especially when he saw the conditions. Even the Trio behind Auba should have been different but again they were amazing last week so i can see why Arteta didnt want to change anything. Brighton have played better teams than us off the park.
pepe or laca would have been a better option than auba today. auba/ode/saka could not keep the ball or even find space today and midfield had so few options. you have to hand a lot of the credit there to brighton as ramsdale points out. they worked their socks off. no shame in coming away with a point i think.
Partey, Tomiyasu and Tirney wasn’t great. But I think out centerbacks were really good. Somehow I didn’t her nervous at all. And Ramsdale were solid. And his interview is spot on. I haven’t really loved an arsenal keeper since Wojciech Szczesny. But Ramsdale has all the crazy I want in a keeper.
i actually thought partey and lokonga were really good in there. they were under constant pressure and got no help from the front four apart from esr who looked like the only one switched on.
partey does need to stop shooting though.
I remember Davor Suker coming on in his first game and spanking the thing into Row Z at about Warp 7 from a shade over halfway. This caused Arsene, with his focus on possession and passing, to nearly blow a fuse.
When asked after the game why he’d done it, he shrugged his shoulders and said; “Sometimes they go in.”.
If you have someone who’s prepared to have a belt from range it gives the opposing defence something else to worry about.
https://twitter.com/Orbinho/status/1444372131836485634?s=19 Ramsdale doing well!
That save from the cross down the Stretch… Oof. Actually something lleno probably does too, but still, saved us a point.
If we could play football as well as our players articulate themselves
Then we’d be winning the quadruple….
Partey, Tomiyasu and Tirney wasn’t great. But I think our centerbacks were really good. Somehow I didn’t get nervous at all.
And Ramsdale were solid. And his interview is spot on. I haven’t really loved an arsenal keeper since Wojciech Szczesny. But Ramsdale has all the crazy I want in a keeper.
I’m sure you told us that…
This time without misspelling because of autocorrect 😀 but you are correct to point out my double posting. Nothing is worse than that.
Shoulda sold Auba in the summer, he’s keeps on churning out these uninspiring performances.
i just think we (and arteta) are expecting things from auba he is just not capable of. he is a bang bang player who gets goals and does little else well – not a good fit for the kind of team arteta seems to be trying to build. i hope we have a plan for who we are going to replace him with next season.
He had a rough time with life in general last season and his play suffered – he seems to be turning things around overall, he looks like he actually wants to be out there playing again. That doesn’t mean he won’t still have an off day (which is exacerbated by less than quality service and other players having a hard time). Hoping he can get his scoring up and running again, not only because as a club we’ve depended on him ever since he’s been here (probably too much – we relied on him scoring a team’s worth of goals… Read more »
Not a great team performance, Auba was very poor nothing was going for him. When laca came on it was much better with is passes out and calmness on the ball. Our midfield was very open, we kept given away chances to them,we were very lucky today. We need to accept it,the team is still gelling and building a identity. Rome wasn’t built in one day, trust the process. Better days ahead
When you only have Pepe as an aerial outlet, and that aerial threat is only out wide flick ons, then you really don’t have much options.
As Ramsdale says, everything has to be inch perfect. You have to congratulate Brighton’s tactics.
They really worked their socks off.
We won’t come across much better aggressive sustained high lines than that this season.
Two options going forward
I am an Arteta fan but I think he missed on a very very very tough decision when he made Auba captain. I think he gambled that Auba would fully or fully enough embrace and adapt to high pressing/leading the team…he was wrong. I remember it took Pep over a year with Aguero and Aguero was pulled from starting and almost left MCity. I predict Arteta will get what he wants and what the club needs from someone else…if he keeps his job.I hope and believe he, Arteta, will do that…keep his job and succeed with some young committed talented… Read more »
As I mentioned before this team is average. Maybe they can punch higher but players we have are either developing or second choices for top teams. Defense jury still out. Looks slightly more solid hope it continues but midfield lacking. And you could tell that from summer additions. As I mentioned many times, Partey is decent but not anywhere near the over imagined powerhouse (yet anyway) many prefer to wank off to with rose tinted glasses. Sambi may likely get better but I’m struggling to understand the rationale selling Willock for 20m and then squandering the income buying a similar… Read more »
Is he keeps going like that, it won’t be long before Ramsdale claims the England no. 1 spot. That would be an amazing accomplishment, but he has the character to succeed there.
Isn’t it great to hear some leadership coming out of the new man’s mouth? Taking responsibility, being honest about our shortcomings but obviously really committed to the ” project” . Let’s hope it works for him – he sounds like someone we’d want to have between the sticks for years to come.