By Chris Harris in New York Aaron Ramsey's willingness to change his game has changed the course of his career, according to Arsene Wenger.

The Wales midfielder was the emphatic winner of Arsenal's Player of the Season award in May after scoring 16 goals in 34 appearances, but he went through some difficult times before emerging as a Premier League star.

Towards the end of the 2012/13 campaign, Ramsey was criticised by some fans, but a timely meeting with Wenger put him back on track.

"You have to do basics, basics, basics, and then slowly you get into the zone where it becomes easier"

"He went through a bad patch, and I couldn't play him any more at Emirates Stadium," explained Wenger, speaking at an Emirates Business Breakfast in New York.

"I sat down with Aaron and I told him, 'I don't think people don't like you, but they don't like your game at the moment'. It was in his hands to change that.

"He had to come back to a more simple game. When you go through a bad patch in life you always go back to the basics. In football you slowly get confidence back and then you play naturally again.

"The problem is that if you play a great shot in golf or tennis, when you go to your next game you want to play the same shot again. But it doesn't work like that. You have to do basics, basics, basics, and then slowly you get into the zone where it becomes easier.

"You have to get back to basics to gain confidence. Aaron accepted that, he did it and he gained confidence again. Then you saw a different player, because he is intelligent, and when I came out of the meeting I knew this guy would come back.

"Aaron listened and he realised he had to change his game. That's why he came back."