Raya hasn’t received that much love from the fans because he displaced fan favorite Ramsdale despite being better on nearly every metric. Even if you don’t compare them, Raya still deserves love from the fans for his great performances
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Man, I hate this. I love Rammers. And while I know Raya has had some mistakes, the guy is class. The way he can ping those balls is really impressive.
Like Ramsdale, feel for him and his England spot. Also don’t mind Raya.
The club needed a new 2nd keeper, and they were essentially able to get one on a loan with obligation to buy. Maybe that made the most financial sense? Impossible for us to say.
It’s pretty ruthless of Arteta to demote Ramsdale, but maybe that’s fine. Wenger was loyal to a fault with his players.
It is fine. Check that interview Henry did with alan shearer, Gary and micah. If you want to win, the best players and/or most inform players play. Simple as that. Nobody’s place is guaranteed.
Pep has benched some of the best players to play the game throughout his career.
The issue with that mindset is if it were true, Raya would have been dropped or we never would have bought some of the players we have (Lokonga, Tavares etc etc).
People see it as harsh when Arteta picks and chooses when he wants to be ruthless and when he wants to play favourites
Everyone is saying he’s better on the ball than Ramsdale, and maybe he’ll turn out to be better, but he’s already given the ball away in dangerous positions so many times. He’s also not been on the shot stopping levels of Ramsdale and makes so many mistakes. Right now he’s a clear downgrade on Ramsdale, and this is coming from someone who wasn’t even a huge ramsdale fan, people just can’t admit that Arteta is getting stuff wrong.
As much as I love Ramsdale people would be blind if they say Raya isn’t a clear upgrade with the style we want to play. More than just his goal keeping his long balls gives us new attaching strategy rather than playing short all the time.
Raya was always Arteta’s pick for the system he wants to play. People forget we tried to buy him before we went for Ramsdale.
Fate gave Arteta another chance to get him this window and we went for it but if we were sucessful the first time round, we would have never bought Ramsdale.
But like… why’d we sell Emi Martinez if we were going to shell out 50 million on keepers over the next 3 years?
Because he’s batshit insane and not in the good way.
Because Leno was our #1 before he got injured, and Emi was told he would have to compete for the #1 when Leno came back. Emi thought he should be guarenteed #1 and didn’t want to have to compete
Which basically just meant that he wasn’t going to be playing at all. We have seen that there is no such thing is competing for your spot as a GK in this club the past few years
Forget Ramsdale and any fan loyalty for a minute.
Raya has shown repeatedly that his positioning from crossing is suspect, and has had two huge lapses in his passing vs city and Chelsea, giving the ball away in the penalty area directly to an attacker.
His stats might be better but he is having worrying moments on the eye test that should be cause for concern.
The worst thing is that he is clearly the number 1 and no matter how many errors he makes this won’t change, and when a player will always play despite this - this isn’t good.
People downvoting you, but completely unable to counter the points you’ve made.
I’ll counter it right here. Raya has played like 20x more passes per game than Ramsdale averages, and is playing riskier with the ball than Ramsdale ever did. These moments will happen as Raya invites the press to open space.
If you’ve ever watched Man City over the last decade or Liverpool with Allison you will see these moments happen multiple times each season. It comes with the territory.
His long distribution is also like 10x better than Ramsdales
Raya has played like 20x more passes per game than Ramsdale averages,
This isn’t necessarily a good thing. From where I sit, it very much seems like Raya has trouble playing a pass into areas that allow defenders to progress, or breaking the press line and getting the ball to midfield. The increased number of passes seem to be from playing Saliba and Gabriel into trouble and needing extra attempts to get out of trouble.
and is playing riskier with the ball than Ramsdale ever did.
Do we notice any significant improvement to make this risk worth it? We’re player much poorer than we did last season, I don’t think anyone would deny. I appreciate that on paper a keeper taking more risks might achieve better results, but we aren’t actually seeing those results yet.
If you’ve ever watched Man City over the last decade or Liverpool with Allison you will see these moments happen multiple times each season. It comes with the territory.
Again, the theory is there, but is it happening In practice with Raya? The entire point of the post you were supposed to be counting is that the stats are redundant because Raya isn’t passing the eye test at all yet.
His long distribution is also like 10x better than Ramsdales
Ten times better? Hmmm. This narrative seems to come from the final minutes of the game against City where he pinged a few long ones against a defence we’d already mentally broken. Ramsdale had good long ball distribution, so this feels a bit revisionist. Perhaps Raya does edge him on this one, but claiming 10x is really silly and harms any argument you want to make.
Raya has broken the press tons of times. And when you invite the press, it will always look far riskier than passing it instantly or hoofing it long.
We haven’t clicked offensively yet mainly because we are playing with a striker at LCM.
If we had a real midfielder there, Rice or a new signing, we would look far better
Really great counter point and really loved that you provided a source for your statistics!
You understand that his making mistakes due to Areta asking him to play like this. Therfor in his eyes it’s a good sign. Especially if he makes a mistake and is willing to continue.
Raya has shown repeatedly that his positioning from crossing is suspect, and has had two huge lapses in his passing vs city and Chelsea, giving the ball away in the penalty area directly to an attacker.
I understand your point here but Ramsdale was incredibly poor on crosses and was leading the league last year in possession lost leading to a shot on goal.
The top comment in that thread:
“High risk high reward system with one of the youngest starting GKs in the top 5 leagues. He’ll be okay.”
We need to accept that these risks are part and parcel of the system.
I was trying to stay clear of the direct comparisons between the two, because of course Ramsdale has been caught out as well.
Raya is 3 years more experienced than Ramsdale, has worked with our keeping coaches before and has been wanted by Arteta for years - and he’s still making these mistakes in high profile games. I think that’s why for me there’s I’m scrutinising these more.
Also (side note) for me it’s strange that Ramsdale’s kicking seemed to be really good at the start and has gotten more suspect as times gone on.
No one will convince me he’s better than Ramsdale apart from his passing and maybe field position. He’s had next to no saves and a couple of goals he has let in I think Ramsdale saves. Really a waste of money and shitting On a fan favourite who’s done almost everything right since he’s been here.
I think the question is, which skill set suits Arsenal right now, and going forward?
It’s pretty clear Raya is better on the ball and picking out a pass, yet inferior to Ramsdale on intercepting crosses. But what attributes do you value most between the two? Neither offers every quality you want in a keeper. Furthermore, both Leno and Martinez were better shot stoppers than either Raya or Ramsdale.
Arteta is looking at the whole team, and picking the keeper who best fits his system.
Better on every static metric. Statistics can’t measure his leadership ability or his control over our defense. If you at all thing our team as a defensive unit with Raya is better then keep drinking your statical Tea and enjoy watching someone wait to do his job instead of taking hold of the situation.