Arsenal v Sheffield United - Aaron Ramsdale eager to embrace the pressure on Blades return

But hang on, is this not a goalkeeper who came up through the ranks at Sheffield United, who played for Chris Wilder and only left three years ago?

That Ramsdale has needed time to readjust after returning in an £18.5m deal from Bournemouth shows how the Blades have evolved and how he has too. The style of the team that stunned Arsenal at Bramall Lane 12 months ago will not quite be the same at the Emirates Stadium tomorrow afternoon.

Equally, though, the strengths the Blades have built in their rise through the leagues has imbued them with qualities which remain strong, the things that make Ramsdale believe he will not suffer a repeat of last season’s relegation with the Cherries.

Ramsdale made only two appearance, in the FA Cup, in his first spell before being one of a handful of talented youngsters sold – along with the likes of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and David Brooks – to allow Wilder to build a squad of League One-ready footballers.

“When I was here before I was on the bench and with the first team but on the outskirts,” he reflects. “I was there to gain experience rather than actually be involved so it does feel different.

“I’ve come back and I’m not looked at by anyone as the lad who’s come from the academy, I’ve come back as a summer signing and one who’s got a voice to speak out if any problems arise.

“In my eyes it is a different club but you’ve got the same staff, the same canteen people, the same groundsman, so you get that homely feel but as a person I’m in a different place to affect things.

“When you are the academy lad you probably do get a little bit of leeway and you can be drip-fed gametime but now there is pressure. There was pressure anyway with how well Dean Henderson did last year but the pressure I put on myself I think is healthy pressure. The main thing for me is to keep clean sheets and help this defence wherever I can.”

The England Under-21 goalkeeper has had to adjust to a system very different to Bournemouth’s.

“It’s just knowing the relationships with other players, ie knowing if the ball’s with your right wing-back, where your left wing-back and left centre-half is,” he explains.

“If you know if someone has the ball on the halfway line and you have three centre-halves you can almost come over to the side of the box where the ball is because you know you’ve got more cover on the diag. With crosses and things like that you can be braver because you’ve got more bodies in the box. That’s something I’m trying to do at the moment – be bolder and braver and have my starting positions higher.

“As far as communication goes, you’ve got more people in front of you who you can directly affect. It’s something we’re practicing every day on the training ground and I personally think you can see it coming out on the pitch, relationships are getting better.

“I feel like I’m getting there, I’m learning the system after every day and every game and I think you can see that in the Leeds performance.

“The main thing is we and I need to start keeping clean sheets and producing big moments to help the team to try and win the game.”

The team as a whole is adapting too, Wilder injecting pace up front with the addition of Oliver Burke and Rhian Brewster, changing his holding midfielder from Oliver Norwood to Sander Berge and adding Chelsea loanee Ethan Ampadu, more comfortable in possession, to his central defensive ranks.

“I do think people are trying to show a lot more respect as a team,” says Ramsdale. “We’re trying to not just play forward all the time, we are trying to play a little bit.

“We’re not going to be stupid in playing out from the back and getting caught, we do know our style, but I do believe we have to try to figure out different ways to win games of football if teams do sit in.

“In the first three games we’ve tried to mix and match it. We haven’t done it as much as the Man Citys and Liverpools because that isn’t our way of playing but we’ve definitely tried to play in certain occasions and that starts from me.”

It has not yet reaped rewards, knocked out of the League Cup at the first hurdle and winless and goalless in a league campaign which is three games old. If Ramsdale is panicked by it, he hides it very well.

“The other day Regan Slater’s dad mentioned on Twitter that the last time this happened (starting the league season with three straight defeats), the club got 100 points (winning League One),” he points out.

“As soon as you gain confidence, whether that’s a new signing or a player hitting a purple patch and scoring six goals in four games, momentum starts and confidence builds. The new players who came into the club, feel ‘We do deserve to be here, let’s go and smash this league’.

“I saw last season the amount of momentum Sheffield United created, and the next thing they were sitting sixth or seventh in March. The quality of the group is there.”

So the poor start has not brought flashbacks to the relegation suffered last season.

“I just think the clubs are in two different places,” argues Ramsdale. “Bournemouth, in my eyes, were an established Premier League football club. It was the first time they had been in the relegation zone for more than a weekend.

“It was an eye-opener for everyone there.

“But this club and this manager have been through a lot.

“We’ve been in League One four or five years ago and I think there’s just a bit more grit and determination.

“It does feel different, but we’ve got to make it different as well.

“We were the ones who let the supporters down and got Bournemouth relegated.

“So, just because the club here has more grit and determination and more recent history of relegation and promotions, does not mean it can’t happen again. It’s in our hands and we’re the ones who have to change things.”

Some things will never change.

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James Mitchinson