After Sunday’s 2-2 draw between Arsenal and Liverpool, Mikel Arteta praised Aaron Ramsdale for orchestrating “magic moments” that might be crucial in the Premier League title chase.
After Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino scored to pull Liverpool back into the game from a 2-0 deficit, the Arsenal goalkeeper made three excellent stops to prevent a late victory for the Reds.
Ramsdale successfully diverted a deflected Salah curling attempt around the post, stopped Darwin Nunez when one-on-one, and miraculously stopped Ibrahima Konate from close range in the last seconds.
After the England international shone at Anfield, where Salah missed a second-half penalty, Arteta compared Ramsdale’s influence to the one Alisson has had for Liverpool in previous years.
During the post-game press conference, the Arsenal manager stated: “You need your goalie if you want to win and be in title races. Alisson has completed his required tasks how many times?
“You have to have that, you have to have those magic moments from the keeper. We had some exceptional moments from players today as well and to win at grounds like that, you need that.”
Despite the fact that Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions still have a game in hand, the draw puts the Gunners six points ahead of second-placed Manchester City in the Premier League standings.
The draw may be considered as an opportunity lost for Arsenal when Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus gave the visitors the lead, even though Ramsdale stepped up in the crucial moments.
Next Sunday, Arsenal will travel just a short distance to rival London club West Ham. After that, they will entertain struggling Southampton before traveling to City on April 29.
While acknowledging the agony of Firmino’s 87th-minute equalizer, Arteta encouraged his team to keep responding like they have during the entire campaign.
He added: “When you concede at the end, you always focus on dropping two points because you have it and you are suffering, but you are relying on certain moments and the feeling is ‘Ah, we should have done it!’
“But being fair to ourselves, they had four big chances where they could have scored and [Salah] missed the penalty.
“We will have to look at ourselves in the mirror and we should have done much better in the second half.
“We’ve been responding for 31 games now. Every single day is a test and the test is now: how good are we going to be on Monday and how well are we going to prepare to beat West Ham and to play the way we want to beat West Ham.”
