Ramsey silences his critics
The dramatic blooming of the Arsenal midfielder shows up the savage haste in which young players are judged and discarded by impatient fans and critical columnists
TODAY at Old Trafford a couple of luxury coaches will disgorge two gangs of players who will be subliminally sorted by the rest of us into groups: those who have made it as Manchester United and Arsenal stars, those who should but have not done so yet, and those who never will.
Just 12 months ago, Aaron Ramsey would have been placed by many into that last, pariah group. In the psychic dumping ground of never-willbes, he would have clanked his chains with other Arsenal nearly-men of recent years, with Denilson prominent among them.
Football’s jeered and derided are kicked around on Twitter, mocked in blogs, impaled by newspaper columnists and resented by fans with shortened patience spans.
Arsenal are not the only major club to have offered house room to players on whom the public and press have long since given up. On the United side, you would be hard pressed to find a Stretford Ender willing to eulogise Anderson, argue for Phil Jones as the future of English defending or extol the courage of Ashley Young.
Once the love of the masses is lost, the argument goes, you
He has jumped from being a symbol of Wenger’s excessive faith in floaty, promising youths to an emblem of his farsightedness
very rarely win it back. A loss of confidence in the stands seeps into the player’s consciousness and pushes him ever further into shadow.
He tries not to notice what he is being said about him but the modern world renders it inescapable. It comes under the door like smoke. Every electronic device becomes radioactive with sneering and dismissive comment.
The mass backtracking on Ramsey expresses first and foremost the dramatic blooming of his talent. It is simply a fact that Ramsey is developing into one of the best attacking midfielders in Europe, just as it seems incontrovertible that Anderson will never live up to the scouting report filed by Sir Alex Ferguson’s brother, Martin, who considered him “better than Rooney”, which he may well have been when that verdict was passed on.
But Ramsey revisionism also shows up the savage haste we apply to judgments about young footballers. In one fourmonth spell, he has jumped from being a symbol of Wenger’s excessive faith in floaty, promising youths to an emblem of his farsightedness.
Similarly David de Gea, United’s wonderfully agile young custodian, has ceased being a frail, scared keeper-ontoast for Premier League strikers and started to look the heir to Peter Schmeichel and Edwin van der Sar.
Doubt about players is a public prerogative, of course, and my, how we use it. The desire for instant gratification has overwhelmed our stated desire to see talent mature at a sensible pace.
The boy wonders tend to be fine. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi were born to greatness. Others, such as Theo Walcott, Kieran Gibbs, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling, have seen their careers played out thus far on snakes and ladders boards.
At United, Tom Cleverley, Antonio Valencia and Nani are among those who face daily struggles to persuade the jury that they are what the brochure says they are: authentic, opposition-crushing, titlewinning Man United stars.
Ramsey’s shocking leg-break was his greatest impediment, physically and psychologically. And while all the analyses of his transformation make interesting reading, they all lead back to one crucial fact.
The player who advances from promising to indispensable does so because he decides to use his gift, in the deepest sense of that phrase. He moves from taking part in a game (and trying to embellish it) to trying to own it, dominate it, write the script.
This is Ramsey’s present mode. He is going hunting in games and coming back with prizes, unlike Anderson, say, a fellow attacking midfielder (and another bad injury victim), who plays as if each day started with the question: “Shall I really go after it today, or just go with the flow and leave it to Rooney and Van Persie?”
The greatest frustration you hear from managers is when they build a stage for a promising youngster and he tiptoes onto it, almost hoping not to be noticed. Normally timidity filters out footballers before they reach first-team action, but some go all the way to the first XI before driving their manager wild with a lack of application, or nous, or desire.
Ramsey is the finest proof presently on show in British football that mass opinion is often context-devoid and irrelevant. It was his life, his talent, his opportunity, all along. The power was always his. — © The Daily Telegraph, London