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To wind it back a bit, one of the things that was talked about a fair bit in the later phases of last season was the shift in Ramsdale’s passing to something much more conservative: fewer short balls through the press, more hoofing and less precision in middle and long distance, etc.
Arteta wants our players to take risks in the buildup. It’s why he bought Thomas Partey and built around him as our 6; it’s why he bought Zinchenko; it’s why he bought Raya; it’s why he bought Rice, who is even better at carrying the ball forward (once he gets going) than Thomas. He understands that excessively safe buildup play is a recipe for sterile, ineffectual possession, and that breaking the opposing press is a great way to generate mismatches in the attacking third-- provided we also progress rapidly when we do.
He’s not going to drop Raya for those errors of ambition any more than he’ll drop Zinchenko.
Yep. There’s a clip that I always think of and it’s pep a few years ago in training yelling at his players and he’s says something like “the one thing I hate is when you don’t want the ball” and then he says something like “I want you to crave the ball, you have permission to make a mistake”