Aaron Ramsey and the 6/10

We’ve had a LOT of colourful discussion this morning about our ratings last night, and the biggest bone of contention from the majority of readers has been our criticism and ‘6’ for Aaron Ramsey.

Many fans are upset by this score, believing he was absolutely magnificent, and that his movement was outstanding.

Now, they’re not completely wrong, some of his movement was good, but there’s more to it.

Let’s look at the numbers to begin with:

Whoscored rated him 6.7, and Sofascore a little more at 6.9 (both a little more generous than us admittedly). Already not quite the 8 or 9 fans have him at though.

Looking at his raw stats, he made 79% of all his passes, made 2 key passes, and was excellent for long balls with 6 nailed of 6.

These are ok, to good. But when we look at his negative stats the picture changes. He lost the ball 14 times, and no outfield starter aside Roofe had less of the ball than Ramsey. He also wasted at least two golden chances and was distinctly sloppy with his short passing game.

He wasn’t garbage, we didn’t say he was, but he didn’t have the impact on the match a lot of fans want to believe he did, and indeed one fan managed to credit him for the penalty Kemar Roofe’s outstanding run won the side. We can’t quite see how he fathomed that one.

What are we trying to say?

He played a role, but nothing about his performance last night was remarkable. We’ve already seen him much better in our shirt, and it’s absolutely nothing to do with disliking the player.

We rate on what we see, and what the data says. We mix them both, because we want our scores to be fair, and to be accurate.

Some fans are also making the argument that we didn’t look as threatening after he went off. They appear to be overlooking hitting the bar, missing two sitters, getting a second man sent off on the other side and scoring a goal.

If you don’t agree with us, you’re entitled to that.

Pity some resorted to abuse rather than reason.