Can Ramsey Replicate Cesc Fabregas For Arsenal?

“A player with a fantastic engine, good build, good technique and good vision”, this is what Arsene Wenger described about Ramsey when he first arrived at Arsenal. Signed from Cardiff city back in 2008 for around £4.8, Ramsey made a competitive debut for Arsenal in the Champions league match against FC Twente and a league debut against Blackburn Rovers and marked it with a fine assist to Emmanuel Adebayor.

Everything was falling perfectly into place for the Welsh man with several man of the match performances and a Welsh player of the year award in the bag, he was slowly getting in to the grove of things at Arsenal and with the whole saga around Fabregas‘ move to Barcelona the Welsh man was the only hope of a direct replacement for the ex-Arsenal captain. But on  27 February 2010, Arsenal traveled to the Britannia stadium to face Stoke City and Ramsey was a victim of a horrifying tackle by Ryan Shawcross and the rest is history.

After a year long break, fighting through his double fractured right leg Ramsey finally returned to action at the end of 2010 and was immediately loaned out to Nottingham Forest and Cardiff City before finally returning to North London at the end of  2010-11 season marking his return by scoring a winner against Manchester United. 

2011-12 season 

Competition	Appearances	Goals	Assists
Premier League	27+7	2	4
Champions League	5+2	1	1
FA Cup	3	–	1
Carling Cup	–	–	–
Total	35+9	3	6

It was a far from convincing performance from the Welsh man and Arsenal fans started to lose patience with him, as the broken leg incident seems an age old reason for not performing well. 

2012-23 season:

This season we have seen Aaron play in the holding midfield role twice now, and the performances from him have been much improved. He played in attacking midfield last season, on the wing for the most part this season and now it seems Wenger has found the position for him. This holding midfield role often allows him more time on the ball, something which, following his injury he’s needed, his first touch let’s him down at times, but with the extra room he can play to his best attributes which are work-rate and the ability to pick a pass.

On a closer look, Ramsey can pass well but is not good enough in the final third.  His passing is strong in the areas where he can spread the ball, switch play and keep possession. The man who was touted to be the heir of Fabregas can now dream of becoming one. With Wilshere in the #10 role, Cazorla and Ramsey can be the perfect pairing in the midfield if he continues to perform at the same level. Let’s just hope he gets better and is not moved back in to the wide role. 

There is still a long way to go for the Welsh midfielder but he has certainly showed potentials of getting better and more importantly reaching to the place where once thought he would reach.