Aaron Ramsdale’s impossible heroics might just win Arsenal the title

Aaron Ramsdale might just be a master of the understatement. “That’s what I’m there to do”, he nonchalantly explained to Sky Sports when asked for his opinion on the flurry of incomprehensible saves he produced to earn a potentially decisive point in their 2-2 draw against Liverpool on Sunday afternoon. Technically he is correct, but the way I see it, it’s kind of like the Hoover Dam; you could, in dull, quotidian flourishes, argue that it is there to hold back 28,900,000 acre-feet, or you could recognise that the steadfastness with which it performs that feat doesn’t make it any less remarkable.

There are moments on which title races hinge. Usually they are goals, sometimes they are refereeing decisions or poorly-timed dismissals. There is every chance that this season, they could be a pair of late, late saves from Arsenal’s number one.

In fairness, Ramsdale had been superb all throughout the contest at Anfield. Earlier in the game he had denied Mohamed Salah to good effect, and he reacted very smartly to save a near-certain goal in a one-on-one with Darwin Nunez - although the Uruguayan’s tendency to resemble a deer calf on black ice whenever he finds himself in that kind of situation might have diminished how impressive Ramsdale’s intervention was to some observers. Not that it should.

Really though, it was a swift combo of extraordinary stops that will linger long in the collective psyche. Disbelief can be a strange thing; it arrives with a numbness and then delivers a sharp scratch and a stinging prickle, like the administration of a local anaesthetic in reverse. Days later, you would imagine that Liverpool fans, and indeed Manchester City supporters too, are still feeling that bitter tingle, just a little.

The first was keep out Salah once more, this time with a clawing stretch towards the top corner. On its path, the Egyptian’s shot had taken a wicked deflection that spun it even further away from Ramsdale’s grasp. Were it not for the fleet footed dexterity with which he scuttled across his line, the goalkeeper might never have made contact with the vital fingertip that nudged it around the upright.

Moments later, Ibrahim Konate, stumbling and bumbling at the back stick, bundled an effort goalwards with his chest. Had he connected with his forehead or his laces, not even Ramsdale would have had a chance to prevent it bursting the back of the net. Afforded the slightest hint of a pardon, however, the England international produced the kind of desperate, nonsensical save that evokes an entire spectrum of gasps; the exasperated, the relieved, the awed.

Arsenal still have a long way to go if they are to do the unthinkable and win the Premier League title this season. There’s a strong argument to be made that they might have win every single one of their remaining matches, including a seismic meeting with Man City. If they do not, Ramsdale’s saves will fade and wane into the realm of the minor detail. But if they do manage it, those impossible flashes of obstinance - like Reiss Nelson’s goal against Bournemouth or the late rally to take three points from Villa Park in February - will be immortalised as snapshots in history.