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Have seen an old clip of Ramsdale talking about how he struggles to concentrate for 90 mins in games doing the rounds again.
This may sound weird and I don’t like psycho analysing things too much but Ramsdale always struck me as making a highly concerted effort to be ultra honest in his media appearances, almost in an attempt to subvert the view many people hold that footballers are “closed off’ and ‘reserved’ (he may genuinely be like this but it’s just an impression I got).
Whilst I don’t agree that what he said effected his position in the team, this statement and some other clips I’ve seen of him talking about how we didn’t know how to handle the pressures of competing for the title last season (whilst the season was still going) don’t fill you with a world of confidence about his own mentality. I do wonder if other pros just bite their tongue in these particular interviews and not say things like that (even if it means not being 100% honest).
To me it seems that Ramsdale’s openness and transparency is almost a blessing and a curse: it has helped build his relationship with the fans but for your own professional career in the world of elite sports it may at times be to your own detriment. Curious to hear what everyone’s thoughts are.
I always find it refreshing when a player deviates from their media training. The media training side of it makes most player interviews predictable, and frankly, unwatchable, to me at least.
I mean, in my job, I can say what I like as long as it doesn’t harm the reputation of the department or the company values. There’s no set script - that’s what branding and email sigs are for. People like to feel like they’re hearing from a human being with a distinct character, even if you have to remain broadly within a set of values.
I think it can be a double edged sword, can very easily work against them when you consider the average footballer isn’t very intelligent nor attuned with his audience. When you live in a glass bowl where everything you say and do gets hyper scrutinised, you need to be very careful with what you say and don’t say, especially when your form drops or you get dropped and then people start using what you said earlier against you.
I think it’s more to do with his inability to play the system. During pre-season he gave an interview where he said Arteta showed him videos of Pep’s Barcelona and asked him play almost at the halfway line when Arsenal were attacking and he simply couldn’t do that mentally. He went on to say that eventually he and Arteta compromised.
If we know anything abt Arteta, he doesn’t compromise. That’s why he’s out. And I suspect we are still scouring the earth looking for our Alisson. When we do find him, we will sign him and Raya will be the backup.
This is the one for me. Why would a manager compromise with a player who by all accounts, is not going to be key in his tactical set up? Like its clear that Mikel is obsessed with finding ways to help us win the league, how is compromising on how he wants us to play from the back going to work out well in your favour? I dunno, seemed a bit naive on Ramsdale part for me.
Exactly and even if Arteta was willing to compromise you have to compensate for that in some other aspect and ramsdale with his shot stopping wasn’t doing that either.
Yeah ultimately it’s a performance based business and I agree that it’s the inability for him to play in the way Arteta requires him to. I suppose I was (broadly) more intrigued by the discourse around some of Ramsdale’s interviews given what I saw doing the rounds.