Arsenal plan for Aaron Ramsdale return revealed after Mikel Arteta admission

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Mikel Arteta has suggested that Arsenal may have to engage in mind games when they welcome back Aaron Ramsdale to the Emirates Stadium this weekend.

Ramsdale was number one at Arsenal for two seasons after arriving from Sheffield United in the summer of 2021, but lost his starting spot to David Raya last season. This saw the 26-year-old move to join Southampton on transfer deadline day this summer in order to get more first team football.

Ramsdale will make his first return to the Emirates Stadium since leaving when Southampton travel to play Arsenal this weekend. Arteta though revealed the pair have already spoken since his departure.

"I called him straight away after I got the news," he said in his pre-match press conference. "He was really happy. He’s a player that we loved a lot, very charismatic and he really put his fingerprints here at the club in the way that he was. It will be very good to see him.

"Personally I am grateful for what he did. When we signed him there was a lot of noise around him. We helped to create the environment he needed because we believed in his potential. He showed it and won the respect and admiration of all of us.

"And then the circumstances changed because this is elite sport and can happen. Then it was difficult to deal with that situation in a natural way and we decided to part ways. Hopefully he is grateful as well."

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Having played for Arsenal so recently though, Ramsdale is likely to know a few of Arteta's closely guarded secrets. Perhaps one of Arsenal's better known about weapons under the Spaniard has been their ability at set-pieces. Since the start of last season the Gunners have scored 26 times from dead ball situations.

Having worked so closely with set-piece coach Nicolas Jover, Ramsdale is likely to know a few of Arsenal's tells. Arteta has suggested that he may need to engage in some 'mind games' to get around this.

"Maybe we tell him that we will adapt something but then do the same thing so he’s going to be thinking we’re going to adapt it!" he joked. "So there’s maybe going to be some mind games. I’m sure that they will have discussed that. It’s not the first time that we have played against a player that was in our camp, it’s natural that it happens. So we need to have the capacity to understand and continue to do our things."

Ramsdale is yet to keep a clean sheet since joining Southampton. He'll be hoping he can add to his tally of 12 shut outs at the Emirates on Saturday though.

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