Arsenal dropped points in a disappointing draw against Fulham on Saturday, with the visitors scoring within the first minute of the game, and some blame has been pointed at goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.
Bukayo Saka had misplaced a pass which went straight to Andreas Pereira, who caught Ramsdale off his line by sending a low shot beyond him into the bottom corner.
However, former Premier League goalkeeper Ben Foster has leapt to Ramsdale’s defence, and explained the 25-year-old’s point of view on his YouTube channel.
“I think what happened is if you actually look at it, when Pereira gets the ball to his feet, he gets it out of his feet really quickly, and his whole body shape is, he almost runs past the ball because it shows that he’s trying to do a big one in that top corner over there,” Foster stated.
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“Aaron Ramsdale is clever enough to see he’s going to do that, so he sees that he’s running around it and what that means is the only way he can do it really is put that big one, he’s trying to lob him into that top right-hand corner, Ramsdale is thinking, ‘he’s definitely putting it here.’
“So he’s running back towards the top corner of his goal, but Andreas Pereira, and I genuinely mean this, has shanked the sh*t out of it. He has pulled the life out of this shot. He’s trying to chip the ball up and over Aaron Ramsdale. He has without doubt shanked it, and it’s gone into this bottom left corner.
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“Aaron Ramsdale knows that he’s trying to put it up there. But he’s got very lucky with the execution of it and it’s absolutely caught him out. So I do feel a little bit sorry for him. But either way, no matter what happens in that position, you have to be back into a position where you can cover all angles. when the ball goes in that place. You’ve got to save it. It was just one of those things that it was horrible.”
Could Ramsdale be dropped?
The acquisition of David Raya raised a few eyebrows this summer, and perhaps having a top-quality second-choice goalkeeper may put extra pressure on Ramsdale.
Some may believe that Pereira’s goal may lead to Mikel Arteta selecting Raya over Ramsdale for the visit of Manchester United this weekend, but this would be a surprising, and possibly disruptive move.
We can expect to see Raya come in once the Champions League group stages begin, and from there the highest-performing option may keep their place, but for now, Ramsdale will continue between the posts.