Examining Aaron Ramsdale: Part 1

Part 1 of what will be a multi part examination of Arsenal's goalkeeper

Evaluating goalkeepers feels like one of the sections of analytics that is still among the least advanced. It is a specialized skill that is different than the majority of things that happen on the pitch and with that just isn’t as easy to translate the other advances onto this position.

With that said, it feels like Aaron Ramsdale is someone who divides opinion even further on how he has done with Arsenal.

I have developed a bit of a reputation as a “hater” and I just want to be upfront here, I do not hate him. I think he is a fine and adequate keeper that fits what Arsenal attempt to do in possession but I think that he is not a massive plus for Arsenal like many in the fanbase. I don’t think that the team needs to make an upgrade a priority but it might also be something that as the rest of the team gets better that it becomes a spot where the team could pivot to try and get some marginal improvement.

This post will be long and will be broken into multiple parts. The first section will be looking at his stats and how he compares to his peers. The later parts will be breaking down all of his shots on target faced this season and going through the post-shot xG rating and what my feeling on the shots was after watching the video of them and rating each performance.

The Stats

Via StatsBomb from the Arsenal Vision End-of-Season Data Review

On the StatsBomb radar he comes out looking pretty good. For more information on this radar there is a good explainer article here that goes through what all of these metrics mean.

Starting at the top using the StatsBomb goalkeeper expected goal model Ramsdale rates as below average, saving fewer goals than expected (this is a long-term trend for him where he has looked average or below for his entire career) but he generally has good positioning looking to be pretty close to optimal. There will be a lot more on this later.

Where Ramsdale stands out is that he is above average at controlling his box (StatsBomb rates things on crosses that are actually claimable and how often a goalkeeper actually claims them) and acting as a sweeper behind his backline. Ramsdale does well to claim more balls in the box than expected, cutting out potentially dangerous chances. He is also a very aggressive player at coming off of his line to clean up danger, with a high aggressive distance line.

This is one of the more positive things from watching him that I see. He looks comfortable on confident dealing with balls that come in over his backline and generally makes the right decision on staying vs going and challenging for these balls.

The last part of the StatsBomb radar deals with items associated with distribution. On Pass into Danger% which is the Percentage of Passes made where the recipient was under pressure or otherwise in Danger, Ramsdale does well. This matches my eye, where he trusts himself when under pressure to make a pass or to just get it out, rather than putting the next guy in trouble.

For positive outcomes, this is something similar to xG buildup but looks at sequences that end with a positive outcome. Here he is slightly below average and I think this is a good segue into how he rates with the ball at his feet.

This is something that backers of Ramsdale like to point to as a key strength for him and I think they are overplaying this. He looks to be comfortable playing with the ball but I don’t think this is a standout skill for him. Let’s dig into this a bit more. Here is what his passing looks like compared to all goalkeepers from the big five leagues.

It is very normal for goalkeepers to not have a lot of progressive passes, this is due to the definition of a progressive pass needing to start outside of the defensive 40% of the pitch and goalkeepers just don’t often find themselves that far out of goal.

Ramsdale’s passing dashboard doesn’t suggest that he is an elite passer. He is near the average or below compared to his peers in most metrics.

Next I want to get into looking at Ramsdale compared to Premier League keepers this season for some distribution metrics. Starting with passing volume.

Ramsdale is on the lower end for total passes attempted. That’s not necessarily a bad thing and is likely more that Arsenal have the ball further up the field but it is noticeably less than players like Alisson or Ederson.

Next, let’s look at how his pass efficiency compares (passing efficiency looks at the actual pass completion percentage compared to my expected completion model).

Ramsdale is again toward the bottom compared to his Premier League peers completing just slightly fewer passes than expected. He is in the group that includes players that you would not typically call good passers.

Another area that seems to get brought up as a strength of Ramsdale is his long distribution. He certainly has had some very good moments where he can ping a laser beam type pass out but overall I think this is a disappointing area as well.

Overall again, Ramsadle is towards the bottom of the list on this metric completing less than 40% of his long pass attempts. Some of this could be down to who he can aim these passes at, with no big target to aim for but it is also something that just doesn’t seem to match the narrative.

The next couple charts get into a bit more of the advanced type metrics, starting with goal probability added through passing. This is my version of an expected threat type model that looks to measure how much an action helps or hurts a team’s chances of scoring.

Ramsdale rates better on this metric but is still below the average for the Premier League goalkeepers.

Next is looking at the percentage of xG while each player is on the field that they contribute to the buildup towards.

Finally, we see Ramsdale move toward the top of a category.

I think my main takeaway from this is that like so many things Ramsdale is fine with his distribution. He is comfortable with how Arsenal plays and does the things that he is asked to do in buildup without making major mistakes but he is also not a major plus in this category as well adding noticeable value over other goalkeepers.

This makes a good bridge into the next section looking at his shot-stopping a little deeper.

Shot Stopping

This is the area that probably causes the biggest divergence between people that watch Ramsdale and those that look at the stats. On the StatsBomb data, he rates as saving fewer goals than expected, on Opta’s data he rates as saving fewer goals than expected, on Wyscout’s data he rates as saving fewer goals than expected, on my model he rates as saving essentially as many as expected.

This uses my shot-on-target, post-shot xG model

Looking at just Opta’s data because it is the easiest to see Ramsdale had one of the worst performances in shot-stopping last season.

This is not a fluke-type occurrence either, for his career above in the Premier League he has been below expected by 9 goals allowing 202 (excluding own goals) from 193 expected over 657 shots on target faced.

I will have a much deeper in-depth look at this in the following parts but I think it is pretty safe to that at this point in his career Ramsdale is not one of the best shot-stoppers, and is likely below average at this.

For a team like Arsenal that doesn’t face a ton of shots (Arsenal allowed the third-fewest shots on target last season) having a great shot-stopper is probably not the most important item that they are looking for.

Final Thoughts for Part 1

For this post, I wanted to give the high-level stats and my initial thoughts on Ramsdale as a player.

Ramsdale is not a bad goalkeeper and given his age, expecting improvement is not out of the picture. He is also at this point not a player that looks like he is elite either.

At his main job of stopping shots he allows more goals than expected on most data providers.

He does pretty well at commanding his box and making claims but is short of elite. He does do well at coming off of his line and sweeping up behind a high line.

He looks comfortable playing in a tactical setup that requires the goalkeeper to participate in the buildup but he still ends up looking below average with his actual passing metrics.

Overall this points to a pretty good overall player but not one that if Arsenal really wanted to, they couldn’t find an upgrade on. At the moment Arsenal seems content with him and have tied him down long-term as their guy.

Over the coming weeks, I will go through all the saves that he makes and look further into Ramsdale as this series continues.