Mmmm... Maybe on his best day is he better than the others, but he also had more variability to his form than any of them. The injuries really hurt his career. When he gets a run of games he becomes a monster, but the constant niggles always cut those runs short. And then the cycle started again when it took him 6 or 8 games to get back up to speed.
I'm not sure that Ramsey was all that different from Rosicky, except that Rosicky had more to his game and was better on the ball. Rosicky was really good off the ball too, and his movement was really really good. I'd certainly take Cazorla and Fabregas over Ramsey as well: they bring more to their game than Ramsey does. The problem with Ramsey is that it's really hard to complement him: who do you pair him with?
Even in his one purple patch season, Ramsey only scored 10 league goals. Have we forgotten Cesc 09-10 when he scored 15 league goals for us? We were so poor that year, having lost RvP to injury and all. That man was a one-man army. Played as a number 10, but consistently had to drop deep to pick up the ball because our buildup wasn't very good, created the most chances in the team, and also scored 15 goals! That man was everywhere! He was like a mini-Platini!
Fabregas played the game on a different level from anyone else - the way he played those early passes was something else. Never seen anyone else (even Ozil) play that way. He should never have gone to Barca. A midfield trio of him, Arteta, and Ramsey would have been something else. I do think that Fabregas leaving broke Wenger somehow.
Forget the midfield, just imagine a fit RvP with Cesc You might be correct here. The one youngster he successfully developed into a world-class player, that he wanted to keep more than anyone, to make him into a long-term captain, the face of his team, the legend of the club. Must have hurt like hell to lose him. Even now, I wouldn't mind seeing him back at the club.
That was the problem in those days. If we could have retained our best players what a team we would have had. The Fab/Hleb/Flam midfields was one of my favourites.
I don't blame any of those guys for going Why do you want to stay at Arse where you would get no ref protection and suffer continuous bad injuries and risk potential career ending incidents (like Ramsey) - not to mention the blatant cheating of those times (dean/dowd etc)
Seems like we get roughly what Cazorla & Fabregas did, from Torreira & Xhaka. But I'll give you that we may not have anyone to fill Rosicky's boots ATM.
True but that was 5 years ago. He never pushed on, or recreated anything like that, or stayed healthy for long stretches (except for lately?) As good as he was last Sunday in his cameo, there's always this feeling that the other shoe is going to drop. Which is why I've vacillated for years over whether we should keep him or not. I guess I won't have to do that much longer, as the word is that he's gonna leave. But in the back of my head there's a fat lady who hasn't sung yet.
Yeah, yeah I knew that post was going to elicited reax like this. So be it. But think about how Torreira has made us (me especially) forget about how much we liked (and miss) Santi. And think about Xhaka's ability to play incisive offensive passes like Fabregas. I'll admit that my case for Lucas is stronger than for Granit. My point was that we seem to be missing Rosicky's wide skills more than the other two's central play.
Surely Fabs skill was in the D? The guy scored goals and assisted like a dervish - in his pomp the best EPL AM in a 4-3-3
Fab was crazy good because he was as good as you said he was in the D, but he was also a conductor from deep. He constantly dropped deep to pick up the ball, move it forward, then push forward.
Of course he was multi-dimensional, but the latter was specifically what I was thinking of (and his incisive throughballs) when I was comparing him to Xhaka. And yes I know that was a bit of a stetch. I wasn't saying that they were equivalent players. I was comparing roughly the team of Santi+Fab and Torreira+Xhaka, and saying that we're not too bad off in that regard.
In terms of impact, there's some similarity. But you can't ignore the stylistic differences: Torreira's a ball winner who's good as an outlet and doesn't really move the ball forward at all. That's more Coquelin than Cazorla (don't laugh - Coq would have been fantastic under Emery). Cazorla was totally different - he wasn't all that much of a ball winner, but he was so, so good at moving the ball forward (both as a dribbler and as a passer). Xhaka does the passing bit, but not the dribbling bit.
Yeah but I think you're selling Torreira short. He's much more than a ball winner. He's made some very good forward passes/assists. One to Laca comes to mind from a few matches back.
Maybe - he doesn't pass forward all that much though. Point is that Cazorla's role was primarily attacking, and Torreira's is much more defensive.
He's not competing with Cazorla, Rosicky, or Fabregas and there are very few players that bring those qualities. Those that do are going to cost an arm and a leg.
Disagree - what made Ramsey work with Arteta was that Arteta was really really good at getting the ball forward. Torreira isn't.
Ramsey can function in a 3 man midfield or as an advanced player in this 343 But he cannot play holding cm imo He is seemingly now more useful to emery than ozil due to his attacking threat when we have deeper players now who hold like torreira, Xhaka and guen