Ramsey Can Push Arsenal Up The Table

Tomorrow Arsenal line up at Goodison Park against an Everton side with the same grit, determination and hard-to-break-down style of the David Moyes era but with some added flair, passing, pressing and fast countering style of Roberto Martinez.

In short, they are same beast but bigger, stronger, harder to kill and possessing blood-lust like it never had before. If Everton get a taste of you they now have the ability to go for the jugular and it’s for good reason the media claim Arsenal should be looking over their shoulder.

Arsène Wenger rightly says that Arsenal should be able to look forward as much as they look back because if Everton can catch us then we can certainly catch those ahead of us. Everton do have a game in hand on Arsenal but that game is against Man City so there is no guarantee a loss to them would seal our fate and knock us out of the top four for the first time in 18 years.

Arsenal have a few things going in their favour in this match. Firstly, it is away. Arsenal’s home form has been pretty decent this season but after promising so much for so long the home crowd has become a bit restless and the type of match Everton will give us in the early stages could have created a negative atmosphere if we were at home.

Secondly, Everton’s new manager has a similar philosophy to Arsenal’s manager – play your own game. Everton players have been praising the manager recently and claim his approach to opposition preparation is a breath of fresh air. They no longer set up or practise tactics to “stop” other teams; they now set up based on their game, their strengths, and focus on how they are going to play so they aren’t stopped instead of playing to stop.

This is how Arsenal play and in theory it should work in our favour. We will not have to worry about the other team Stoke-ing or Chelsea-ing us. All Arsenal has to do is focus on their own game and play to the best of their ability.

Lastly, we welcome back Aaron Ramsey. I don’t think he will start but I can certainly see him coming on for the final 20-30 minutes and that is where the game is most likely to be sealed.

Olivier Giroud has looked lost since Ramsey and Theo have been absent and will be pleased to play alongside a player who is going to push up in support, makes runs into the box and try to get onto the end of balls Giroud lays off when playing his hold up game.

Giroud’s hold up game has looked weak to many recently but I think they aren’t looking at the wider picture. Giroud often has three or four opposition players trying to bully him off the ball and when they eventually succeed he looks weak. What this doesn’t show is that if one or two Arsenal players pushed up in support of Giroud he would most likely find them. In a two on four situation, 9/10, Arsenal will come up trumps because Giroud is more than capable of physically coping with 2-3 players.

This game represents a chance to pretty much clinch fourth and 20 minutes of Aaron Ramsey and Giroud together really should be enough to see out a game. If Arsenal can win this game then the difference will be 7 points with 6 games remaining for Everton and with Man City their game in hand and Arsenal’s kinder run-in you would imagine the gap would be a task too much for the Toffees.

Should Arsenal create that 7 point gap then they can start to look solely ahead of them. It has been a strange season, with so many twists and turns, and it is not unfathomable to think there will be more before the season is out.

Arsenal has done well to stay in the mix with so many players out and the amount of games they have had to play so it is the perfect time to welcome back Aaron Ramsey and if anyone in the squad can help us push up the table and finish this season on a high it is him.

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