We’re now at the most exciting bit of the football season, and Arsenal are in a great position to make this one of their best campaigns for a long time.
With just eight league fixtures left, the Gunners remain firmly in the three-horse race alongside Liverpool and Manchester City.
Arsenal have won nine and drawn one of their last 10 games in the league, and the sole draw has come away at Man City.
Nowadays, any club gunning for success needs to have good strength in depth, and this is something that Mikel Arteta has cultivated at Arsenal.
For instance, the Gunners have had one of the best goalkeeping selections this season, with David Raya and Aaron Ramsdale at Arteta’s disposal.
Admittedly, it’s not necessarily a case of both players being happy with being first-choice and second-choice respectively.
Ramsdale was first-choice at Arsenal and everything was seemingly ticking along nicely, until Arteta signed Raya and made him first-choice.
The England international has had to make do with sitting on the bench for most of the season, and it’s unlikely that he’ll stick around next term.
Nonetheless, Steve Bruce has told BBC 5 Live Sport that having two “top goalkeepers” in a team’s ranks is “crucial”.
What has Steve Bruce said about Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale?
Bruce says Ramsdale is a “really fantastic goalkeeper” who had a “wonderful season last year” and, as such, Arteta is right to want every base covered in that position.
The experienced manager said: “Why wouldn’t you cover every base and cover it with two top, top goalkeepers if you can?
“Of course, you are going to give out the ‘yes we are going to rotate’ [lines] but the boy Ramsdale, who had a wonderful season last year, has probably played once or twice.
“But he [Arteta] knows that if something happens to his number one then he has a really fantastic goalkeeper to back him up. Because it’s such a crucial position.”
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Obviously from the player’s perspective, it’s not ideal to go from playing 90 minutes pretty much every week to sitting on the bench all the time. Particularly when you’ve done nothing wrong.
However, from a manager’s perspective, it’s logical to want to have two world-class goalkeepers at his disposal, which is what Arteta has this season.
Ramsdale will probably leave in the summer, but Arsenal will have the chance to source and sign an equally good replacement in the off-season.
Letting the 25-year-old go in January would’ve been risky, because the new keeper would’ve had to come in and hit the ground running.
And that’s if they were able to find a brilliant goalkeeper that another club would’ve been willing to sell mid-season. Better to conduct such business in the summer.
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