Aaron Ramsdale says Arsenal can start to challenge Liverpool and Manchester City if performances regularly match the shift put in during today’s frustrating 2-1 defeat to Pep Guardiola’s league leaders.
While the 10-man Gunners were denied a point right at the death, the technical quality shown during the first half, not to mention the aggression both in and out of possession, should serve as a blueprint for upcoming tests against other big name rivals.
More than anything, the side clearly demonstrated their improvement following more ragged outings earlier in the season.
Speaking to Arsenal.com, Ramsdale reflected: “Huge amount of positives. Not too many teams have dominated Man City like that more in the first half than we did it.
“We played really well in the second half and we need to try and get over the line in one these big games, but at the start of the season when it’s 4-0, 5-0, Liverpool, City, today’s a massive step in the right direction.
“We need to win one of these games, but ultimately we know we’re not challenging with these guys at the moment, but on today’s basis, if we can put that in week in, week out, we can be.”
On the result, he added: “Yeah, it’s a tough one to swallow, we played so well, defended so well with 10 men, unlucky ricochet really and it falls to them and gets poked in. We’re deflated, but we’ve got to swallow it and move on because that’s football and we’ve got an important semi-final first leg coming up on Thursday.”
Like assistant coach Albert Stuivenberg, who led the team in the absence of Mikel Arteta who was forced into isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, Ramsdale was frustrated by the officiating and, in particular, the inconsistent use of the pitchside monitor to review contentious incidents.
“I felt it was soft,” said the goalkeeper of the decision to award a penalty for Granit Xhaka’s challenge on Bernardo Silva.
“The linesman said he didn’t think it was a penalty, but then they get told to go and check it by VAR. I’m more annoyed about the fact that they didn’t tell them to check ours in the first half on VAR. The referee might have said ‘no penalty’ anyway, but in game time, both times it was ‘no penalty’ for them and us, but he gets to go and check there’s and not ours. That’s where my frustration is, the inconsistency between one decision and the other.
He added: “The referee said no penalty, like you say goes to the screen, it’s slowed down and you can see things and stuff, but if that was given for us we wouldn’t be having this chat, but the fact that he’s been told to go and see the screen for one and not ours, that’s my frustration, because if he thinks it’s a penalty on the screen then it’s a penalty, but we didn’t actually get the chance to see ours.”
Spot on.
Just watched, Absolute bollocksing from the ref. Soft red (both such soft yellows and fouls $hitty committed all day). Soft pen (xhaka naiviety aside – that was not enough to overturn a decision). How TF is ours not a pen? Ederson connects Marty before any touch on the ball – that’s a foul and there was absolutely enough evidence to overturn it. But sure, if you don’t want to see it you won’t. Fk Steve Mcmannerman too. Wanker. What a load of rubbish. I’ve been trying hard not to blame the refs this season, but that was a farce, borderline… Read more »
McManneman is a turbo wanker. He’s so biased against Arsenal it’s unbelievable. Nobody has the ability to piss me off on co-commentary like him.
You must remember he was part of the Liverpool set up that we used to own on a regular basis.
He’s all that’s bad about the scousers.ln my younger days I worked on sites in London with them. Mickey Thomas hurt them badly. Contrary to popular belief George Graham knocked them off their perch.
Michael Owen
Don’t care about the result, play like that every game, passion, drive commitment…young guns go for it
Someone, not an Arsenal fan, said he has noticed that Arsenal get booked easily. Today we made 11 fouls and got 4 yellows,plus a red. This thing is grating on my nerves. Why does it seem we always get targeted by referees? How can we change this?
Referees ruining the games are making me lose interest.
This is spot on. A few Utd fans disagree (because they’re Utd fans obviously), but it is a trend. Clubs like Utd, City and Liverpool (somewhat) get treated in a completely different light when it comes to bookings.
Add Sp*rs to that list. Kane in particular.
The kane one against liverpool was shocking, any other player heads toward the tunnel without waiting to see the card.
Few weeks back they all won on the same day via pens… 🤔
I have no problem with lacazette shithousing, gabriel and xhaka being cunts. The narrative is we’re soft. Even with so called arsenal fans on here, crying about xhaka giving Raphael a kick. I had no problem with gabriel getting booked for messing with the penalty spot, same goes for ramsdale. The more we give back the sooner we will change the narrative. The same idiot’s on here clutching their pearls,think of the children, fuck the children. Xhaka stamped Raphael because their center back kicked martinelli. He was mouthing off because he was telling them you kick our best players we’ll… Read more »
You’re on the money there Daveo we’ve needed a bit of shithousery for a long time every top team has it in them you look at city and they love a snide tackle they are just better at it than us.
This was a high-quality rant. For so long Arsenal has been seen as soft, yet when they’re spiky on the pitch it’s seen as somehow dirty and crossing the line, by opposition fans and officials alike – and we’re punished for it (first Premiere League team to 100 reds, as of yesterday…). It’s a weird double standard. We only escape it by being full-on all the time. Maybe that’s what we’re now seeing: since those two incidents where no reds were given, against Everton and Palace, where none of our players especially protested, they seem to have switched and are… Read more »
Agree, the 2 that have surprised me that don’t seem to be willing to take shit are odegaard and white.
Yep we were the better team, and we got screwed by officiating.
Something people have missed also, by the book inciting rival fans is a yellow card as is shirt removal, so by the law they should have been down to ten as well.
Rodri should already have been on on a yellow by then
As should have ake who pulled saka back about 6 times
Rodri did get booked for that. A yellow for both instances
So he got booked for one instance you mean?
Sensible guy. Could be a good captain next season.
How can the PGMOL conspire to make such a pigs eat of implementing what should be a fairly idiot proof technology?
And Fucking spuds, fucks sake!
It says everything about our performance that Ramsdale had hardly anything to do in the game.
Both penalty incidents WERE penalties. In the first half the City player catches Oderguard before touching the ball. In the second half it’s a shirt-pull in the box by the Swiss brain-doner.
But we didn’t lose the game because of poor refereeing; we lost it by indiscipline from both Xhaka and Gabriel.
It’s poor officiating plain and simple. Why book Gabriel in the first place when he wasn’t the only guilty player? Ramsdale shown to have scuffed the spot too, but which player does a yellow card effect more?
This gets a down vote from me. Officiating lost us this match, nothing else.
Have to agree. Players should be smart enough to not go for stupid mistakes like that at this level. Once they do that, referee has no choice but it’s the players who put the ref in that position. Xhaka’s was a penalty and what Gabriel did was utterly stupid too.
I agree xhaka is xhaka… Its a pen. He tugged on him and knocked with his leg. You play xhaka this is what inevitably happens. He literally leads the league (historically) in pens by mids… Consolidating his lead in the history books. But that should not be over turned. NO WAY. not the way it has been done all season. Particularly on the back of the marty o pen that evidence clearly shows ederson hitting leg then ball. And all the yellows and reds were a farce. Xhaka cost us, but the ref cost us more. That was pathetic. Weak… Read more »
As many have said Silva was far into his dive when xhaka grabs his shirt – that gives the ref an excuse but silva should be booked by that time for a dive. He does NOT catch him with his leg Silva runs into him (just saw the highlights on youtube from the arsenal official and they include the VAR).
On its own its a pen, but that wasn’t the decision. no way it should have been overturned, particularly after the other one.
It really fucking grates when saint Pep comes out on BBC and says and I quote “we were the better team and they couldn’t compete with us” 👿
It also fucking infuriates me that they VAR checked their penalty but did not VAR check ours!
Sorry that should read didn’t initially tell them to do a VAR check with ours whereas the city one was automatic
Fuck that mercenary twat. You or I could win the leagues he’s won given his resources.
When have you seen city rattled like we had them today?
They knew they nicked it, you could see it in the way they celebrated.
Onwards gunners!
Please, stop acting like Arsenal is a small neibourhood club with no ressources… Let’s admit it’s all about money, then why are we not competing with Liverpool, Chelsea, or even Spurs recently? Why West Ham was above last season? The result today is tough to swallow, unfair, I get it. But please…
Stay tuned.
Maybe, as English is not my first tongue I don’t understand your irony, but Guardiola actually never said that. He said that “Arsenal were the better team”.
Actually, Guardiola said we were the better team: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/59848390
Nice. I was prepared to go on a rant about Pep but I am happy to have seen this. Couldn’t disagree with anything he said.
Where did you get this from? I’ve just watched a clip of him on the BBC that says the exact opposite. Verbatim: “Yeah, they were better. They were [the] better team, yep.”
I’m not fond of Pep but let’s not get carried away.. Proud of the boys today, if we play even half as good as that against Spurs we’ll fucking nail them. The upward trend continues in my eyes.
I didn’t read you and loose cannon so said same thing above 🤓
The truth is, if we play like that against anyone, we are likely to win. I mean, Bayern, anyone.
He didn’t say that, he said we were the better team and they couldn’t compete with physically as they played 2 days ago and we didn’t. I get there’s a lot anger, I was at game and share the anger, but facts are important
That’s the best we’ve played all season and the lads should be proud. Be we were totally robbed by refereeing decisions. City were nailed on to win that match regardless of how they performed… as they say, ‘money talks’ (or oil). Backhanders all round.
Agreed. It’s very depressing. Been going on since the early wenger days (and before). Except back then we were so much better than everyone else it didn’t matter. Now even if we reach our full potential we can’t win, because there are so many other teams with bottomless resources and have no qualms paying off the officials to get the result they want. Guarantee Sheikh twatface was on the phone to Attwell at half time offering some greasy oil notes. Maybe we should commit 10% of our budget next year to bribes. That way we might get one or two… Read more »
Just want to follow up by saying that was up there with the Utd unbeaten run ending loss and that Newcastle game (the one where Alan Shearer refereed the game) as one of the most contemptible, vomit inducing, bent games of football involving arsenal I have seen.
Yeah ManUre sure paid off officials to deny arsenal back in the day of Wenger’s Arsenal v Alice Ferguson’s scum!!!
I remember watching that game live with a friend of mine who was Newcastle. I was really upset cause we were chasing for the title. Henry was furious the gave him few games ban but still ended being top scorer and we became the champions. We should only have lost two games that yr and not three. Clearly there has been biased refereeing towards clubs from the North. Liv and Utd in particular but now adays City are in the mix.
That unbeaten run ended was just fraud. They had to find way Arsenal was just too good and confident it would taken another 20 games or more before they loose
The worst Shearer incident I remember was him kicking Neil Lennon in the head. After the match the pundits media and dalgleish were that outraged Lennon almost had to apologize for headbutting the England captains foot.
This is nutty. The referee was terrible. There is not the slightest indication that he is corrupt. Use of VAR is ridiculously inconsistent. For everyone.
When there are a few bad decisions that go both ways and they are few and far between, then yes, incompetence is the likely answer.
When there are consistently bad decisions that constantly favour particular sides and change the results of several games then questions need to be asked.
I find it odd that many seem to think corruption can only happen in other leagues in other countries.
I am telling you that you are completely wrong. The sense that there are “consistently bad decisions that constantly favour particular sides” is simply not based on anything tangible. If you watch other matches, if you look at what supporters of other clubs are saying, you will find the exact same claims of bias. Do some players get away with things, because of their “big” reputations? Of course. Are weak referees swayed by home crowds? Yes. Do powerful managers sometimes intimidate referees? Maybe, though not much since Ferguson retired. Are there unconscious tendencies in England to favour English stars regarding… Read more »
It’s comical that you don’t think corruption exists.
Agree, he’s was not competent. Saka getting a yellow before rodri proves that.The English referees have been the same way for a long time. Graham poll gave a Croatian player 3 yellow cards at the 2006 world cup. The standard hasn’t improved since.
Now here’s a footballer who talks his heart out like a fan. Great interview
As if the first day of the year couldn’t get any more shit the spuds score a spawny winner with the last kick of the game. So we outplay the best team in the world, get cheated all game by a bent referee and concede a last minute deflected goal, and Spurs play terribly away at one of the worst teams in the league and scrounge a last second winner. 2022 can already fuck off, along with my wretched hangover.
When you put it that way… damn. I went to the game today and, seeing that performance, just the fact that we have that in our locker made me smile. I feel relieved that these players are our players and it sets a good tone for the rest of our season with a performance like that on new years day. Tbh, I feel it was 2-3 moments of inexperience which against the best team in the world on current form will cost you the game at this level. But we showed heart and this is a young side 2-3 signings… Read more »
Yeh the performance was really amazing across the team. Tactics were spot on. I’d have preferred to play like that only to be undone by two moments of city brilliance (which they are capable of) but I’ve replaced resignation from our past abject performances with resentment over the integrity of the game and it doesn’t make me feel much better 🙁
I’m with you on that, but resentment over integrity of the game is a step forward because it means our performances now deserve wins and we’re being honest with ourselves. Anyways, what’s encouraging me is to think about how this game will go next season, when city come to Emirates next year I’m sure they’ll come away with nothing. Think of what can happen by then, the experience these guys will have gained playing with eachother, a possible world class signing because it seems the board have finally woken up. There’s good things to come, onto the next one and,… Read more »
Can’t disagree with what he said. Just need a few upgrades and we’ll be close to where we want to be
The pen was awarded for shirt pulling but how can you pull a player back and he “falls” ( for falls read DIVES) forwards!! Can someone please explain to me how the hell how that works?
I said the very same thing! I might be reaching but it seem more like xhaka took action in his own hand pull him up as if to say “get the hell up and don’t dive”!
$
9 times out of 10 that performance would be rewarded with 3 points against 17 Premier league sides. 5 times out of 10 it would have earned us 3 points against Man City or Liverpool. If we can play like that, I feel we are favourites fro be playing Champions League foot a next season.
I couldn’t agree more with what you’ve just said, I am personally ignoring the result with an asterisk and just enjoying the bravery shown today.
Nice to see a player address the obvious inconsistency in the officiating. Question is then, how long before we begin to question the consistency in the inconsistency? If it’s the same type of “inconsistency” every time there’s a controversial incident, shouldn’t we see the pattern? I don’t remember Arsenal getting a soft penalty since forever. When do we just call it blatant corruption? Remember when they stole Chamber’s winner against Palace? They couldn’t even find the thing they had used to steal our goal, afterwards, which meant they had to apologize. Supposedly an error. How does that kind of error… Read more »
Consistently inconsistent.
With these refs nothing makes sense anymore, the only thing that makes sense with them is that nothing makes sense.
Do you remember this? In our last two FA Cup finals (arguably our two most important matches in a decade), both against a big, rich club (Chelsea) the referee sent off a Chelsea player. One of the times, he gave a Chelsea player a second yellow for diving! In a Cup final! By the way, it was the same referee both times. If a Chelsea fan accused the official (Anthony Taylor, one of only two English referees chosen for the last Euros) of being bent, what would you say? In general, officiating in England is quite bad–but that doesn’t mean… Read more »
VAR is, was, and will continue to be a disgrace. The ONLY thing it should be used for is Offsides. All other decisions is at the ON field referee’s discration with no VAR allowed to rewatch. This is a fluid game thats all about mistakes. This isn’t the NFL where everything is tangible and measured. Everyone has different opinions on what’s a fair challenge and what’s not, including refs. You cannot standarize the game because there is no detailed or defined standard.
Totally agree. FWIW, in my opinion even NFL replay has showed that things we want to be “objective” in sport are almost always judgment calls about fluid movement, and these things are rarely tangible and measurable, hence the ongoing “What is a catch?” problem in American football. (Which reminds me — Dez caught it! But I digress.)
That’s true. And the NFL is much more defined and standarized than football. (Think of the billion rules there are)
No need for VAR to look at this, right? He hit Odegaard’s foot before touching the ball. But they can VAR an offsides call for 5 minutes and then say a guy’s arm was a centimeter off.
https://twitter.com/mrjakehumphrey/status/1477271204591554565?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1477271204591554565%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=
Should we go to a tennis type system and have a 1 or 2 appeals system a captain/manager can activate and send the ref to the monitor, and the main VAR ref is only for offside
Didn’t Wenger propose this years ago? The appeals thing I mean, that guy was ahead of his time!
Not many have dominated city like that – and still lost.
The only reason we lost is because Xhaka did the only thing that Xhaka is any good at – he single handedly trashed everything we had worked hard to achieve in this game.
Xhaka cannot think and because of that he does not understand the consequences of what he does. Last week he narrowly avoided a red for a foul on Rafinha and the list goes on. An idiot and a liability..
Don’t be mad at Xhaka for being limited, he’s not selecting himself on the teamsheet. He’s only doing his best, but we need to go out and replace him with world-class.
Fully agree with this, it’s difficult because Xhaka is limited but he’s willing to get back and try to help defend which is absolutely what you want from the senior players. If he wasn’t there it’s almost a certain goal anyway. An upgrade would be marvellous though.
This will only make us stronger. Believe, we are getting there.
Ramsdale is great, he’s only here a few months and I can’t imagine this Arsenal team without him now, seems like he’s part of the furniture.
As much as they nicked it courtesy of the Ref, we could have won this game never mind come away with a more than deserved hard earned draw. The team showed a lot of spine today where not to long in recent past, we would have rolled over and got spanked going a man down never mind even with 11. We were not timid today, moved the ball quick and were a constant threat to them from both flanks but particularly with Martinelli’s dangerous acceleration. Haven’t seen this sort of threat since Alexis. I’d be cautiously optimistic that we could… Read more »
Love Ramsdale. Exactly what we need.
Good no nonsense keepr but a bit of banter and cynicism.
From his ‘subtefuge’ trying to create a rut for Mahrez before their penalty to his management of time toward the end, its a bit of cynicism which we lacked in days past
How did Xhaha end up getting a yellow card after giving away the penalty, whilst in real time the ref didn’t give the penalty and didn’t book him. Any ideas?