Former Arsenal left-back Nigel Winterburn has called on Mikel Arteta to keep faith with Aaron Ramsdale for the clash against Tottenham later today.

There has been speculation that the 23-year-old could be dropped in favour of Bernd Leno for the North London derby and, while Winterburn wasn’t initially a fan of signing Ramsdale, he feels changing the keeper now would not be a good move:

“How would you explain to a goalkeeper [Bernd Leno] that you’ll leave them out for two weeks, and then guarantee their place for the next fixture, a north London derby. That would be absolutely ridiculous. How can you play a goalkeeper who has potentially produced two match winning performances and then just apologise to them and replace them with someone else. Professional football is ruthless, and I don’t see that happening.”

Reinstating Leno for this evening’s game would be a huge surprise, considering Ramsdale has played very well in the matches against Norwich and Burnley, where he kept two clean sheets.

As Winterburn points out, it would send the wrong message to Ramsdale and lead to huge uncertainty over who is really the number one.

The fact that Leno was selected for the Carabao Cup tie versus AFC Wimbledon during the week would suggest he isn’t being considered for today’s game but we shall see who is on the teamsheet come 3:30.