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Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey has had the season of his life this year, completing his resurgence from fringe player to potentially the side’s most important player.
The latest in a stream of positive comments to come his way came in the form of praise from former Liverpool and Fulham midfielder Danny Murphy, who compared him to Chelsea legend Frank Lampard for his knack of arriving in the box to score.
Ramsey made a goalscoring return to the Arsenal Premier League starting eleven following injury at the weekend, scoring the opening goal as Arsenal beat Hull City 3-0.
This prompted praise from Murphy and the subsequent comparison with Lampard.
“I worked many years ago, with a wonderful coach called Ronnie Moran who was at Liverpool for 50 years – he’d seen it all. And he was obsessed with the third man running, he said to me you don’t need to the pace to run in behind players. You need good intention, good desire and timing,” Murphy told Match of the Day 2.
“Probably the best example of that is the best goalscoring midfielder the Premier League has ever seen, Frank Lampard. You wouldn’t say he’s the quickest, but his ability and desire to get in behind and off strikers’ knock downs and stuff like that. And Ramsey is another brilliant midfielder, at doing that.”
Ramsey’s goal against Hull was his ninth Premier League goal of the season, coming in his 21st league appearance.
Surging into the space vacated by his teammates, it is easy to see how the goal sparked comparisons with Lampard, who was the master of timing his runs and ending up in the right place at the right time.
Aaron Ramsey Goals Scored
All of Ramsey’s goals bar one this season have come from within the penalty box and the Welshman has a shot conversion rate of 30%. Many of his strikes have been reminiscent of Lampard and Ramsey has looked to be the Englishman’s heir as the division’s best goalscoring midfielder, along with Manchester City’s Yaya Toure.
Ramsey’s shot placements
He will need to keep up this season’s form over a number of years before he can truly be compared to Lampard, but Ramsey has shown goalscoring qualities that suggest he could do so.
Chelsea’s record scorer, Lampard has found himself in a more defensive role in recent years with his advancing age. Prior to his transition, Lampard played off of Didier Drogba for Chelsea, giving him a more advanced position from which to score his goals than Ramsey.
This also gives Ramsey more defensive responsibilities than Lampard used to enjoy, with the Arsenal man the modern incarnation of the box to box midfielder.
No Arsenal player has made more tackles than Ramsey this season and the Welshman has the all round game and energy that adds a dimension to his play beyond that of Lampard’s. However, going forward there are clear similarities between Ramsey and Lampard, with Ramsey’s recent goalscoring glut demonstrating an innate ability to visualise runs develop that he shares with the Chelsea man.
Lampard has arguably been the most successful attacking midfield player of the Premier League era. If Ramsey can prove half as successful he will have done well and if this season is anything to go by, he may well do so.
