By Harry (@harrybellman)
Due to my ‘annoying prick’ nature, I decided to write a kind-of controversial blog. I’m going to basically state my whole argument in one sentence so that you can decide early on whether you can be arsed reading my bollocks or not. Here it goes: Aaron Ramsey’s injury was a good thing. I should stress that this isn’t necessarily my viewpoint; I am merely playing Devil’s advocate.
It would be fair to say that Arsenal’s injury problems have been in the spotlight this season more than ever. People have been investigating the causes and excessively debating their impact on our campaign. None of the discussion about the injuries however has looked at them in a positive light.
Aaron Ramsey, in my opinion, is the reason for Arsenal’s high league position in the first half of the season. He has surprised and delighted everybody with his form. I’ve always loved the bloke to the extent of editing him on FIFA before starting a manager season so that he would warrant a place in my team; however, even I was concerned that the form displayed in the early parts of the season was a one-off hot streak. I was afraid that sooner or later his performances would regress somewhat like Jack Wilshere has done after his encouraging spell, including the Barcelona victory. However, Ramsey has come back after months out and is recreating said form, once again being the driving force behind Arsenal’s success.
Now, to switch things up, let’s turn our attention to Giroud. Like Ramsey, he was in good form early in the season, but after he became fatigued, faded away. Now he is the target of a fair amount of criticism. What is to say that had Ramsey not had his injury-enforced break that the same wouldn’t have happened to him? Even if he was more talented than his fatigue-induced form might suggest, confidence is huge in sport. We are seeing with Giroud, despite a few games break he is struggling to regain the form that we know he is capable of, all because he now lacks confidence and conviction. It could therefore easily be argued that Ramsey’s injury has kept him from following Giroud down the slide of mediocrity, a slide lubricated with fatigue (a beautiful metaphor I know). This is simply further evidence of Wenger’s genius!!! What other manager would have thought of deliberately running his star performer into the ground so as to maintain his form for the run-in?
None!!
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