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3rd August 2023
11:26am BST
Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale has revealed that his wife suffered a miscarriage while returning from holiday last season.
Ramsdale opened up on the difficult time for him and his partner, which happened shortly after heading to his first-ever World Cup with England and admits that the pain he experienced was difficult to sum up into words.
Speaking to the Players' Tribune, he said: |There are things that go on in our lives that the public has no idea about, and the past year has been an emotional rollercoaster for me and my family. After the high of climbing to the top of the Premier League table and going off to my first World Cup, my wife and I found out that we were expecting our first child.
"Mikel [Arteta] gave me a few extra days off after the World Cup, so we went on a brief holiday. It was genuinely the happiest time of our lives. And yeah … there’s no easy way to say this, but I feel like it’s important that people know.…
"On the flight home, my wife had a miscarriage."
"There’s really no way that I can describe the pain of that six-hour flight back to London, even now. I just want people out there to know that they’re not alone if they’re going through it themselves. When we got back, I didn’t tell many people what happened. Only my family, my teammates, and of course Mikel."
The Arsenal 'keeper paid tribute to the support Arteta showed to him and his family throughout the challenging time and that playing football was the only way to take things off his mind.
He continued: "He was fantastic about everything. Even in the middle of the title race, with so much pressure on the club, he asked me if I needed some time off to deal with everything. Mikel went above and beyond to make sure me and my family were OK.
"For me, that’s a manager.
"We don’t always see eye-to-eye on everything. We have some very florid conversations about football sometimes. But he cares so much about his players, and he forever has my respect for how he handled our grief.
"Three days later, we were playing Spurs in the derby, and for me that was the only way to get my mind off things. Football has always been my escape. I told the manager I wanted to play. It couldn’t have been a better night. We won 2–0 under the floodlights, and our away fans were going absolutely ballistic. If you watch the match back, you can see me beaming at the final kick of the ball."
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