Aaron Ramsey believes timing played a crucial role in Mathieu Flamini’s superb volley at White Hart Lane on Wednesday.
The France midfielder settled a fiercely-contested north London derby when he lasered a 20-yard first-time effort into the bottom corner.
Ramsey has scored a number of volleys in an Arsenal shirt himself. The Wales midfielder ranks Flamini’s goal alongside Tomas Rosicky’s at the same ground in 2014 and says his team-mate connected with the “sweet spot” when shooting beyond Michel Vorm.
“As soon as you’ve hit the ball, you know you’ve struck it well and that you’ve hit the sweet spot, it’s always going to have a chance,” he told Arsenal.com. “It just depends if the goalkeeper saves it or not. It has a chance.
“If you take a touch then the defender may close you down. The ball was in the air and he’s running onto it.
“In those situations you know that you’ve got a chance of meeting the ball at the right time.
“If you make the right connection with the ball then it’s always going to have a chance of going in. Thankfully it did on the night.”
Flaming scored twice in the League Cup third-round match, with the 31-year-old’s all-action performance impressing Ramsey.
“Whenever he gets onto the pitch he puts in a shift and does the dirty work,” he added. “To see him score two goals is quite a surprise but he definitely took them both very well. He had a fantastic game.
“It was almost as if he was a striker gambling on the keeper fumbling the first one. He’s gambled, it’s come off and he’s put the ball in the back of the net.
“It’s great instinct from him and obviously the second one is all about the timing. He’s taken it ever so well for it to just go flying into the bottom corner.”
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.