Aaron Ramsey

[Nuggets]

Ultimate professional. Bossing it today

Playing for a big club to come and get him.

Its a shame he couldn't climb off his high horse in time for AFC to pull the offer.

Sounds like he's going to have to move abroad and everything lol, should of took the £170k.

He is in the shop window.

[Ach]

I WAS there when Ryan Shawcross snapped Aaron Ramsey’s leg in half.

I heard the crack of Ramsey’s leg from the bench. I heard the screaming.

And the build-up to the game contributed to this moment.

Stoke manager Tony Pulis absolutely despised Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, hated the way he played.

While Wenger hated the way Stoke played. They were the direct opposite of each other in football terms.

They used to have little snipes at each other in the media.

All week I had never seen a manager so desperate to win a game of football, it was bordering on out of control.

In training, I remember doing the set-piece routine from corners.

Shawcross and Abdoulaye Faye were preparing to play as central defenders, one of them would go across the near post. And I just remember us practising it over and over again, the corner coming in and Pulis screaming: “Ryan go across the f****** front — if you miss the ball you f****** well make sure you take someone out.

“You put the keeper through the net and into the stand behind. If you miss the ball you make sure you take someone with you.”

Like every other game he was telling us to turn them and get at them and all the usual stuff managers say.

But that particular game it was very much ‘lads, don’t forget, be aggressive in the tackle, dominate your man.’ That was the message.

It started that sort of feeling where it began to bubble within the players through the course of the week.

Until finally it got to match day. The changing room was full of aggression and I remember the team talk more than anything.

I remember Pulis pacing up and down shouting random things — this bundle of nervous energy blurting random swear words, trying to burn off his own nervous energy.

And, of course, the upshot of all of that energy was that we went over the top and it cost Ramsey a year of his career.

It seemed to me that was as a direct result of players reacting to their manager’s over enthusiasm and buying into that whole thing and carrying out his instructions and crossing the line.

And injuring players. Teams are a direct reflection of their manager. Without exception. We never sat in the dressing room and said ‘we are going to injure that player.’

It’s more ‘don’t give them time, get in their faces, if the ball is there to be won go and f****** win it’.

The one we knew we could get under the skin of was Cesc Fabregas, but he was quite good at giving it back as well.

It was just anyone in an Arsenal shirt, if you were near them you would let them know you were there.

You could just see it in the tunnel that they didn’t want to be there.

We would come out of the changing room first so they would come and line up next to us and we were all north of six foot. You could just see them shrinking in the tunnel before you and Pulis really really played on that.

But it just went too far. His desperation to beat Wenger and justify his way of playing football. It crossed the line and went too far.

He was just desperate to win and some of the tackles we would put in — myself included because it was asked of you — were shocking really.

But as aggressive as we were, the first person on the scene with Ramsey was our midfielder Glenn Whelan, who held his hand for the whole time.

I remember looking at a picture of it afterwards and you think, ‘there’s something not quite right about this picture’.

It takes a few seconds to figure it out. Ramsey's leg was pointing towards the away fans. His body was facing me on the bench but his leg was at a right angle.

It was just horrendous. I distinctly remember Wenger turning around in the technical area absolutely horrified by it.

The first person he looked at when he turned around was me on the bench because I was in line with him.

Even though it wasn’t me who broke his leg, I was on that bench, part of that team.

Wenger gave me this look of complete and utter disappointment — the kind of look your dad gives you when you’ve f***** up, when he’s gone beyond anger.

It was as if he was saying to me ‘I’m surprised that you would be a part of this’.

That’s how I felt. I didn’t know where to look, I was totally embarrassed.

Prior to that happening I was probably quite a tough footballer and a tough man. But, in that split second, Wenger gave me that look and I lost something inside of me.

I thought there is more to life than this. This was not the reason I became a footballer and I really didn’t want to be included in this or put my name to this.

In that moment, I thought ‘I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to play like this and I don’t want to be a part of it’.

I carried on for a bit after that but I just lost my stomach for it in the end. I would rather not be a footballer at all than have to play that way.

It was always Tony’s way or the highway. If you didn’t do it, you didn’t play and you didn’t train with the first team.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football ... ve-kitson/

We've been saying it all along but when it comes from one of his own, theres no defending it anymore. Pulis is a massive c***

[Marsbar100]

I WAS there when Ryan Shawcross snapped Aaron Ramsey’s leg in half.

I heard the crack of Ramsey’s leg from the bench. I heard the screaming.

And the build-up to the game contributed to this moment.

Stoke manager Tony Pulis absolutely despised Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, hated the way he played.

While Wenger hated the way Stoke played. They were the direct opposite of each other in football terms.

They used to have little snipes at each other in the media.

All week I had never seen a manager so desperate to win a game of football, it was bordering on out of control.

In training, I remember doing the set-piece routine from corners.

Shawcross and Abdoulaye Faye were preparing to play as central defenders, one of them would go across the near post. And I just remember us practising it over and over again, the corner coming in and Pulis screaming: “Ryan go across the f****** front — if you miss the ball you f****** well make sure you take someone out.

“You put the keeper through the net and into the stand behind. If you miss the ball you make sure you take someone with you.”

Like every other game he was telling us to turn them and get at them and all the usual stuff managers say.

But that particular game it was very much ‘lads, don’t forget, be aggressive in the tackle, dominate your man.’ That was the message.

It started that sort of feeling where it began to bubble within the players through the course of the week.

Until finally it got to match day. The changing room was full of aggression and I remember the team talk more than anything.

I remember Pulis pacing up and down shouting random things — this bundle of nervous energy blurting random swear words, trying to burn off his own nervous energy.

And, of course, the upshot of all of that energy was that we went over the top and it cost Ramsey a year of his career.

It seemed to me that was as a direct result of players reacting to their manager’s over enthusiasm and buying into that whole thing and carrying out his instructions and crossing the line.

And injuring players. Teams are a direct reflection of their manager. Without exception. We never sat in the dressing room and said ‘we are going to injure that player.’

It’s more ‘don’t give them time, get in their faces, if the ball is there to be won go and f****** win it’.

The one we knew we could get under the skin of was Cesc Fabregas, but he was quite good at giving it back as well.

It was just anyone in an Arsenal shirt, if you were near them you would let them know you were there.

You could just see it in the tunnel that they didn’t want to be there.

We would come out of the changing room first so they would come and line up next to us and we were all north of six foot. You could just see them shrinking in the tunnel before you and Pulis really really played on that.

But it just went too far. His desperation to beat Wenger and justify his way of playing football. It crossed the line and went too far.

He was just desperate to win and some of the tackles we would put in — myself included because it was asked of you — were shocking really.

But as aggressive as we were, the first person on the scene with Ramsey was our midfielder Glenn Whelan, who held his hand for the whole time.

I remember looking at a picture of it afterwards and you think, ‘there’s something not quite right about this picture’.

It takes a few seconds to figure it out. Ramsey's leg was pointing towards the away fans. His body was facing me on the bench but his leg was at a right angle.

It was just horrendous. I distinctly remember Wenger turning around in the technical area absolutely horrified by it.

The first person he looked at when he turned around was me on the bench because I was in line with him.

Even though it wasn’t me who broke his leg, I was on that bench, part of that team.

Wenger gave me this look of complete and utter disappointment — the kind of look your dad gives you when you’ve f***** up, when he’s gone beyond anger.

It was as if he was saying to me ‘I’m surprised that you would be a part of this’.

That’s how I felt. I didn’t know where to look, I was totally embarrassed.

Prior to that happening I was probably quite a tough footballer and a tough man. But, in that split second, Wenger gave me that look and I lost something inside of me.

I thought there is more to life than this. This was not the reason I became a footballer and I really didn’t want to be included in this or put my name to this.

In that moment, I thought ‘I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to play like this and I don’t want to be a part of it’.

I carried on for a bit after that but I just lost my stomach for it in the end. I would rather not be a footballer at all than have to play that way.

It was always Tony’s way or the highway. If you didn’t do it, you didn’t play and you didn’t train with the first team.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football ... ve-kitson/

We've been saying it all along but when it comes from one of his own, theres no defending it anymore. Pulis is a massive c***

Yeah he was massive c*** but that highlights the issue with wenger, he didnt protect his team, anyone would have played aggresive like that against us, even Chelsea and untied f***ked trying to outplay then, they knew get stuck in counter and we will best ourselves

[Sims]

Some stoke fans insisted that Ramsey broke his own leg before Shawcross touched him the disgusting bastards

I’m so happy to see the plight of that horrific club, and even though I’m not w current fan of Ramsey the player, his FA cup winning goals make me so proud after what he went through against them bunch of anti football c****

[Marsbar100]

All 3 tackles were horrific, the ones against Birmingham and Stoke came from old school British managers that are fortunately being fazed out with the pl money, hodgson, Warnock, Hughes and dyche are the only ones now, Houghton and Howe are more modern.

Still to many but in 05-06 there was curbishley, pardew, robson, Jewell, roeder, Pearce, coleman, Moyes, allayrdyce, hughes, O'Leary, bruce, McCarthy, mcalreen, redknapp.

When you look at the quality of manager operating then compared to now it's not really that suprising Wenger could maintain top 4 for a while post Highbury

[Ach]

3 tackles?

[Marsbar100]

Diaby

[Va-Va-Voom]

Eduardo

[theHotHead]

Good article !! And do not get me wrong, Stoke were a team of thugs.

But I have to tell you that team talk is pretty standard in the lower leagues of football, as much as I hate Pulis, I wouldn't necessarily say he is unique with his approach.

[Royal Gooner]

Good article !! And do not get me wrong, Stoke were a team of thugs.

But I have to tell you that team talk is pretty standard in the lower leagues of football, as much as I hate Pulis, I wouldn't necessarily say he is unique with his approach.

It's the fact he went out of his way to make his players angry and want to hurt someone when they were playing against Arsenal.

[Angelito]

The fact is that all of this was there for everyone to see. Something was never right when we played Stoke. But instead, we got blamed for being "soft." The media and pundits questioned our bottle.

On a different note, in big games during 07-11, the referee always seemed to favor the other side. If there was a 50-50 call, it always went to our opposition.

We had young players. We didn't have leaders, yes. But make no mistake of how the media, pundits, referees, etc. always found a narrative to show us as softies with no bottle.

I still can't get over the fact that the entire Premier League had to conspire against us so that we didn't go 50 unbeaten.

As much as Wenger lost the plot during his final years, we'd probably be sitting with 2 more PL titles if the referees didn't cost us all those big games, or if we weren't hammered by the press like it were a sin to play open, attacking fluid football for a club in debt.

[Marsbar100]

We were soft and lacked bottle though, the double winning teams or the invincibles would never have got bullied by Stoke.

Referees didn't cost us the title from 07-11, when push come to shove Chelsea and united just had that bit more than us in that period, even after Ronaldo left.

[theHotHead]

Im kind of in the middle on this. I agree that we didn't get the protection we should have from referees at times and the media hysteria about our softness is to blame.

But I also agree that we were soft and lacked bottle, you felt that against any physical team we were not up for the fight. Football is played in many ways, the physical side of the game should not be ignored and that's exactly what Wenger did, he neglected that side, opting for small technical players instead.

[LMAO]

Yup. Wenger failed to maintain a balance of grace and grit. He opted for an idealism and took it to the extreme, which cost us dearly.

[Rockape]

Yup. Wenger failed to maintain a balance of grace and grit. He opted for an idealism and took it to the extreme, which cost us dearly.

Absolutely right! The core of steel he inherited were replaced slowly with lightweights ( mentally and physically). Sometimes you need to win the physical battle to have the chance to win the football battle.