As Arsenal have improved in recent seasons under Mikel Arteta, supporters have had to come to terms with moving on from beloved players.
When the team was underperforming, it is easy for fans to say good riddance to players they felt no attachment to, naming no names, but this has not been the case in the last three years as the Gunners have challenged for the Premier League title again.
For example, Hale End graduates Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah struggled for minutes during their final season at the club before being sold.
Meantime, when Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus arrived from Manchester City, they changed everything, elevating the standards and improving the team but, once Arsenal reached Man City’s level, the pair became surplus to requirements.
Former number one, Aaron Ramsdale, was another who was ruthlessly thrown to one side, Arteta favouring David Raya instead.
So now, is one of the most popular members of the current squad in danger of becoming the latest player phased out by Arteta?
Aaron Ramsdale's rise and fall at Arsenal
When Ramsdale joined Arsenal from Sheffield United for around £30m in the summer of 2021, there was much bemusement about the signing; why were the club paying such a huge amount for a guy who’d been relegated in both of the last two seasons?
Well, the young Englishman would quickly prove everybody wrong, usurping Bernd Leno as number one four games into the season, starting 76 consecutive Premier League games thereafter.
Ramsdale was a key figure in Arsenal’s first title challenge, thereby named in the 2022/23 PFA Team of the Year, alongside teammates William Saliba, Martin Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka.
The goalkeeper was therefore rewarded with a new contract, in which he emotionally discussed how he feels the love from the supporters, stating that he could not imagine calling anywhere else home.
Well, a matter of weeks later, Raya had arrived, quickly dislodging Ramsdale as number one, with the Englishman making just 11 appearances in 2023/24, three of which came against Brentford with Raya ineligible, before being sold to Southampton.
When Raya was signed, few Gooners were onboard with this, having taken Ramsdale to their hearts, but ultimately Arteta has been proved right, with the Spaniard keeping 45 clean sheets in 105 appearances for the club, a feat the boss described as “unbelievable”, adding “I was hammered when I brought him”.
So, is another beloved player in danger of following in Ramsdale’s footsteps and being reluctantly sold?
Arsenal star in danger of becoming Ramsdale 2.0
So far this season, Riccardo Calafiori has started all seven Premier League matches at left-back, thereby consigning Myles Lewis-Skelly to the bench.
Thus, the 19-year-old’s only starts to date have come against Port Vale and Olympiacos, seeing just 83 minutes across five substitute cameos in the league.
Last season was very much Lewis-Skelly’s breakout year; on 8 October 2024, he was starting for the U21s against Milton Keynes in the EFL Trophy in front of 2,427 before, six months later, starting both legs of Champions League quarter-finals against Real Madrid and then the semi-finals against Paris Saint-Germain.
This led to Adam Keys labelling him a “sensational talent” while club insider, Hand of Arsenal, even suggested that people at Colney believe he is a “future captain”. The table below underlines his importance last season.
Minutes
2,303
13th
Completed passes
946
9th
Pass completion %
91.2%
2nd
Progressive passes
95
9th
Shot-creating actions
43
11th
% of dribblers tackled
87.5%
1st
Ball recoveries
75
11th
Touches
1203
12th
As the table rubberstamps, despite the fact he did not make his first Premier League start until 14 December against Everton, Lewis-Skelly was a pivotal figure for Arsenal, with only Saliba completing a higher percentage of his passes, also ranking highly for defensive metrics too, memorably scoring his first senior goal during the demolition of Manchester City.
So, why has he fallen down the pecking order this time round?
Well, Arteta has stated that “sometimes it’s form, sometimes it’s the fact that we want to do certain things in relation to the opposition”.
Despite this lack of club minutes, Lewis-Skelly has been called up by Thomas Tuchel, having started England’s 2-0 win over Andorra at Villa Park last month, hoping for more minutes against Wales at Wembley on Thursday and then Latvia next week.
Tuchel himself has expressed his concern about the teenager’s lack of club minutes, but is this a major issue long-term?
Well, Calafiori has certainly proved himself to be very injury prone, both since arriving at Arsenal and before; the beginning of this season is the first time he’s started seven successive league matches since February 2024.
Also, the Gunners will be hoping to play as many as 65 matches this season across all competitions, so there will be plenty of opportunities for Lewis-Skelly who, just like Ramsdale, signed a new contract in the summer, but will be hoping to avoid a similarly abrupt ending to his Arsenal career. For now, however, he’s been surprisingly bumped down the pecking order, just as the goalkeeper was.