Bantasy Football: Aaron Ramsey is Rubbish

Before Luis Suarez catapulted Liverpool to the top of the league in December, there was a strong argument that Aaron Ramsey was the player of the season so far. He's scored 8 goals and has 6 assists, making him joint third with Yaya Toure in the fantasy points rankings behind Suarez and Aguero, and is the most selected player in the game - featuring in 62.6% of teams.

This includes my team, where he's been an automatic selection every week, but I can't help feeling that he is actually a bit rubbish and it's time to ditch him.

The arguments against this point of view are obvious. He's got a brilliant scoring and assisting record, and he's started every game for Arsenal this season, who will probably go into the new year top of the league. Plus he's still really cheap! You can spend more money at the cinema these days than it costs to put him in your team. The cinema is expensive though. Arsenal have West Ham, Newcastle and Cardiff coming up, which are fairly easy fixtures. It all points to keeping him in, apart from... wait, read the next bit!

What do you think of Aaron Ramsey?

a. He's an amazing player, I bet Real Madrid and Barcelona will try to buy him, or maybe even Man United I've always known he was this good, and if Shawcross hadn't injured him he would have been this brilliant two years ago and Arsenal would have won the league by now.

b. Wow, he's having a great season, I didn't realise he had this in him. I'll whack him in my fantasy team as he is so cheap and everyone can't be wrong, right?

If you answered 'a' you are probably an Arsenal fan, if you put 'b' you are probably everyone else, if 'c' then you've probably not seen much of this season, but the point is that many people would have answered 'c' at the end of last season, myself included. I'm yet to be convinced that he is really good in the same way that last season I was unconvinced by Papiss Cisse. Who is he anyway? I googled 'Aaron Ramsey - rubbish' (I am excellent at research) and found this Arsenal forum where in 2012 about 50% of people were saying he was worse than Denilson, and they should definitely sell him.

Slippery slope

Arsenal have started to slide. Mesut Ozil is disappearing from games, Olivier Giroud hasn't scored in the last 5, and they have recently been spanked by Man City, played out a bore draw with Chelsea and lost to Napoli, creating the most difficult of ties with Bayern Munich, the best team IN THE WORLD (having defeated Raja Casablanca, the second best team in the world). They haven't won a football match in three weeks, when they beat Hull at home - big whoop. They've had a lot of injuries and all the games in quick succession have made them look tired. Ozil left Madrid because he wasn't getting 90 minutes, and he may have dropped off because he's not used to playing twice a week. With Wilshire out for 2 games, this will increase the workload on the others.

Teams not playing in Europe have really gained in strength over the last few weeks, with Everton, Liverpool and Newcastle picking up points. Chelsea and Man City have been able to cope better with their larger squads, but it's the Europa league teams (Tottenham and Swansea) and Arsenal who have really felt it.

Finally, Ramsey's recent points totals of 6, 3, 5, 3 are not exactly inspiring. If you are not top of your league, how are you going to catch anybody when you have the same players? Come on, break the mold and have some balls!

Alternatives

One for Arsenal fans who are ignoring all the omens and portents of the downturn. He's just back from injury and looked good against City. He'll play further forward than Ramsey and has consistently scored for three seasons, including 14 goals and 10 assists last year. Arsenal have two away games in a row coming up, where they will look to break with Walcott's pace.

A really good player whom Arsenal were linked with in the summer, and now PSG are hot on him. Too good for Newcastle, and Wenger was probably looking at him to replace Ramsey in the starting 11 this year before he started to play so well! He's only 6.5 and he's been pushed further forward for the last two games, scoring 21 points not including the game he was banned for. Newcastle have Stoke at home next. Stoke are shit.

6.1 million, so you can pick up some of that cinema money by swapping him in. He's got 23 points in his last 2 games and really looks to dominate game when Gerrard is absent, similar to his scintillating under-21 form, not that I expect anyone has seen any of their games. Drawback is that he has to play City and Chelsea away next. It's a gamble! One to watch perhaps.