In the second-half of this evening’s League Cup semi-final tie between Arsenal and Liverpool, the pitch at the Emirates Stadium was explored by a couple of pitch invaders, one of which whom managed to interact with Aaron Ramsdale.
Miguel Delaney, chief football writer over at the Independent, took to Twitter to share that one fan attempted to kick the ball but was thwarted by Ramsdale, who showed the safe hands he’s displayed all season since his big-money transfer to Arsenal.
Delaney added that Ramsdale refused to shake the hand of the pitch invader, who was shown to be a young chap in an image of the goalkeeper’s reaction that we’ve sourced and shown below.
Delaney noted that supporters inside the Emirates Stadium cheered when the invader was finally tackled by the stewards.
A pitch invader goes to kick the ball only for Ramsdale to pick it up and refuse to shake his hand. Cheers as he eventually “brought down” by the stewards.
— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) January 20, 2022
Whilst the TV cameras robbed us of this moment by cutting away, one photographer thankfully captured the moment:
It wasn’t even a case of just one pitch invader this evening, as there ended up being two in the space of a minute at the Emirates:
Game held up by a second pitch invader in the space of a minute.
— James Pearce (@JamesPearceLFC) January 20, 2022
Ramsdale has swiftly established himself as a fan favourite since joining Arsenal last summer, with the 23-year-old regularly displaying the kind of passion and emotion that fans have been longing for years, and evidently becoming a leader in Mikel Arteta’s side.
You can’t really blame Ramsdale for snubbing the fan, even if they were one of the Gunners faithful, as the north London outfit were 1-0 down so it would never be the smart move to delay the match just to appease a supporter.
It seemed like those who elected to storm onto the pitch this evening were able to do so in similar ease to the way in which Diogo Jota bounced around the Emirates field tonight. The stewards’ defending ability clearly isn’t quite up to scratch, so perhaps its time for some coaching.
Jota ran at the defenders.Four gunner defenders couldnt stop him . Really crazy.White was easily side stepped.
I have been saying for along time that Arsenal need guys who can run at defenders instead of passing or waiting for the perfect pass.
This result shows MA has a lot of work to do