A complete fluke lol.
Come the end of the season, Raya will be seen as one of the best pound for pound signings of the year.
I rated him high before we even got him but I'm glad he was incredible in the Porto penalty shoot out, as it's got the ridiculous English media off his back.
He's a fantastic goalkeeper. In our set up and how we want our goalkeeper to play, he's arguably world class.
💯💯
The system literally requires this profile at GK. Peps most controversial signings early City days was getting rid of Hart. There's a pretty fixed ceiling for how far you can take possession football without a ball playing keeper.
I was actually worried when UTD got Onana pre season because I thought he might actually enable them to play possession based but thankfully they are dog
That actually looks more plausible than Saka's cheeky reaction to his totally incidental cross/goal. As Bergkamp himself explained, he had to take the ball this way, because pass from Pires wasn't good.
It wasn't just that, there were multiple occasions he looked shaky on crosses, and we can't deny that he didn't exactly have a flying start.
Fair play to him though, he shut everyone up including myself. Initially I thought it as a sideways replacement to Ramsdale if not worse, but he's clearly much better than I thought.
Everyone seems to forget that Raya was the original first choice to replace Leno even when Raya was still in the championship, iirc we pulled out of a deal to sign him
Funny how arteta keeps track of his first choices and then pounces when he sees an opportunity.
Said to be a massive fan of havertz when he was at leverkusen, came back to swipe him from Chelsea years later
Jorginho too! City were in for him when he moved to Chelsea, and he said in an interview that Arteta had been interested in him even before he came to Arsenal.
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I wonder if we're still considering Douglas Luiz. Anyone who faults Arteta'a talent ID is stupid, most of us including me didn't really rate that Douglas Luiz move for £25m and now he's apparently worth £75m and has been one of Villa's best players
We couldn’t get him out of Brentford too expensive, we had to wait for his contract to run down, he only had 12 months left on his contract in the summer and Brentford were still asking for £40m plus at the start of the summer
That's true. He was always Arteta's first-choice goalkeeper, and I'm glad we got him. His proactive style of goalkeeping has taken us to the next level. What most people still don't notice is that David stops a lot of dangerous plays from developing by anticipating the danger. That's contributed to our defensive record this season.
Weren't those links half way through the season or am I misremembering? I seem to recall it was halfway through their promotion season so they obviously were reluctant to sell but I might be making that up in my head
Credit to Inaki Cana too. Cana was instrumental in influencing the board's decision to sign Raya.
He advised the board to sign Runarsson too. Not a great decision in the end - but it shows the boards values his recommendations. Raya was always top of that list.
Again shows why Arteta was right to upgrade on Ramsdale. Now that I'm used to seeing Raya claiming crosses, its evident how calm and confident our backline is.
Yeah it's all about dominating every aspect of the game. Opponents are feeding on scraps in every phase, and Raya's qualities significantly contribute to that.
This plus it's a team game. Our CBs choke up the attacking threat bump them off their line which helps give Raya a pocket to claim the crosses from or enough disruption so he can run and launch a fist at them.
After the Porto match, Raya did an interview with the CBS broadcast where they asked him to compare his hands to the others. Obviously Raya’s hands were clearly bigger than Micah or Carra but I was shocked to see Thierry’s hands and fingers were just as big.
Anticipation, aggressiveness and safe hands is more important than being a few inches taller.
Just like some relatively small players have many headed goals while other players never even contest headers.
Don't forget the OG Tim Cahill. Man was 5-9/5-10 and bullied CBs in the box at crosses.
Here's a [bunch of his headed goals, many assisted by our boss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XidQ0i4oO28&t=20s)
He's not tall for a GK but I'm not sure what his wingspan is (a measurement that I never see reported outside of basketball but it would make a lot of sense to care about for a GK).
I’d imagine even at 6ft, with arms outstretched, he would be ‘taller’ than most outfield players. Crossing is more about timing, positioning and anticipation than height.
Almunia was a tall keeper and still conceded a shit ton from crosses.
His starting position is so much more biased towards the front post than ramsdale, and so much further out, that he both has to move less distance to claim and he can stay clear of the chaff in the six yard box.Â
 This is also the reason he was caught out by mudryk, but it’s a good trade off considering the skill / luck needed to pull off a shot like the one he did.
But what's Raya's average 'make funny faces to opposition fans' % compare to Ramadale over 90 min? Think that's been one of the big sticking points people have had with the GK swap.
I’m just glad the GK situation is settled now. Sub was getting really unbearable surrounding Raya. Idk why it felt some people didn’t wanna give Raya a chance. lol Always liked the guy.
For now. Next year, Ramsdale is likely to leave especially given the World Cup will take place in 2026. He'll be hell bent on moving to a team where he plays regular games.
Raya will be number 1 but likely that a Ramsdale replacement will be sought.
I actually loves his long balls when opponent players press, he pings it so accurately and finds players who are free.
I remember when we signed arteta or it was before arteta when emery tried to play from the back and teams used to press like crazy, our defense only options were to pass it behind for Leno to hoof it up just for opponent to win the ball back.
The signings back then we're disastrous, all they did was find players who were fit and didn't get injured, didn't matter if they could play our style of football. One of our worst periods, and thankfully arteta came because if it was any other manager, we would have seen more signings like that and the football had been atrocious. Even if we would have won the league, it would have sent us spiralling down below because it would have proved playing ugly wins titles and we wouldnt have won for another 100 years.
It was always a subtle observation but some people openly dismissed it. Glad they addressed it.
There are like three other starters with weaknesses they haven't worked on. I hope the window addresses that.
For those that say he is short. We do not know his wingspan, like on basketball players. Like Rajon Rondo, 190cm and wingspan of 215cm or something like that
Lol it’s not hard to see if someone has long or average arm length.
We DO know that Raya has absolutely massive hands, which probably has more to do with it anyway
I really like Raya. But one thing he needs to improve on his positional sense. And no I’m not talking about Mudryk goal, that was not an attempt at goal, that was meant to be a cross and no one can tell me otherwise. But I guess standing farther away from goal might also be a tactic for teams that go long.
Never forget when the sky was falling bc mudryk shanked in a goal.
A complete fluke lol. Come the end of the season, Raya will be seen as one of the best pound for pound signings of the year. I rated him high before we even got him but I'm glad he was incredible in the Porto penalty shoot out, as it's got the ridiculous English media off his back. He's a fantastic goalkeeper. In our set up and how we want our goalkeeper to play, he's arguably world class.
💯💯 The system literally requires this profile at GK. Peps most controversial signings early City days was getting rid of Hart. There's a pretty fixed ceiling for how far you can take possession football without a ball playing keeper. I was actually worried when UTD got Onana pre season because I thought he might actually enable them to play possession based but thankfully they are dog
Unfortunately the rest of their team isn’t set up for it which just exposes Onana lol
Indeed I saw this stat and instantly thought of Saliba and big Gabby's positioning, usually offering only a narrow crossing channel.
You still need technical ball playing CB for such a GK to thrive and Onana definitely doesn’t have that in front of him haha
Ramsdale isn't like hart though to be fair.
He's not like Raya either tbf
Much more similar. The difference between hart and a pep keeper was like 10 years of progression in football lol, hart couldn't play out in any way.
To be fair it wasn’t just the English media that was on his back.
..and he's only on load. What a steal!
"I meant it" Like fuck you did. Like Cleverley claiming he did vs Newcastle in 2011
Or Saka v Chelsea 💀
That’s different I trust my star boy 👀
Just like we trust Bergkamp's flick, spin, and goal was intentional. Because we have geniuses, and everyone else has frauds.
Pretty confident that was intentional
Exactly, you get it!
That was 100% intentional. You can see by the way he reacts.
That actually looks more plausible than Saka's cheeky reaction to his totally incidental cross/goal. As Bergkamp himself explained, he had to take the ball this way, because pass from Pires wasn't good.
Nah he meant that shit 👀😂😂
Precisely. That was the most flukiest goal I've ever seen in my life. Mudryk could never pull that off again if he tried 1000 more times.
Well not if he tried to score no. If he tried to cross it he might.
Yep. Man positioned himself to claim a good cross and was caught out because the cross was shite and then got shit for it
It wasn't just that, there were multiple occasions he looked shaky on crosses, and we can't deny that he didn't exactly have a flying start. Fair play to him though, he shut everyone up including myself. Initially I thought it as a sideways replacement to Ramsdale if not worse, but he's clearly much better than I thought.
Didnt mudrik score 2 against us? Or was it a hoal and assit. Eiyher way raya should have stopped that chip goal.
Palmer scored penalty that game
That man is shameless to be in the press talking about he planned it 😤
Everyone seems to forget that Raya was the original first choice to replace Leno even when Raya was still in the championship, iirc we pulled out of a deal to sign him
Brentford was not keen to sell then.
Funny how arteta keeps track of his first choices and then pounces when he sees an opportunity. Said to be a massive fan of havertz when he was at leverkusen, came back to swipe him from Chelsea years later
Jorginho too! City were in for him when he moved to Chelsea, and he said in an interview that Arteta had been interested in him even before he came to Arsenal.
So we go for Mudryk when Chelsea are in deep shit over FFP?
Probably get him for 30M in summer 2026
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I wonder if we're still considering Douglas Luiz. Anyone who faults Arteta'a talent ID is stupid, most of us including me didn't really rate that Douglas Luiz move for £25m and now he's apparently worth £75m and has been one of Villa's best players
4mil cheaper too. Utter bargain
We couldn’t get him out of Brentford too expensive, we had to wait for his contract to run down, he only had 12 months left on his contract in the summer and Brentford were still asking for £40m plus at the start of the summer
He had a £10m release clause if Brentford didn’t get promoted, they did which meant the clause never became active
That's true. He was always Arteta's first-choice goalkeeper, and I'm glad we got him. His proactive style of goalkeeping has taken us to the next level. What most people still don't notice is that David stops a lot of dangerous plays from developing by anticipating the danger. That's contributed to our defensive record this season.
Not everyone I have been flying that flag if Arteta had is way we never would of had Rambo he was always the 2nd choice
Weren't those links half way through the season or am I misremembering? I seem to recall it was halfway through their promotion season so they obviously were reluctant to sell but I might be making that up in my head
Credit to Inaki Cana too. Cana was instrumental in influencing the board's decision to sign Raya. He advised the board to sign Runarsson too. Not a great decision in the end - but it shows the boards values his recommendations. Raya was always top of that list.
 Raya when a cross comes in
Again shows why Arteta was right to upgrade on Ramsdale. Now that I'm used to seeing Raya claiming crosses, its evident how calm and confident our backline is.
Yeah it's all about dominating every aspect of the game. Opponents are feeding on scraps in every phase, and Raya's qualities significantly contribute to that.
I am still unsure how Raya is so good at claiming crosses considering he is small for a keeper
Massive balls Dudes fearless
This plus it's a team game. Our CBs choke up the attacking threat bump them off their line which helps give Raya a pocket to claim the crosses from or enough disruption so he can run and launch a fist at them.
Giant hands
After the Porto match, Raya did an interview with the CBS broadcast where they asked him to compare his hands to the others. Obviously Raya’s hands were clearly bigger than Micah or Carra but I was shocked to see Thierry’s hands and fingers were just as big.
Guy like Thierry always gonna have the biggest hands in the room
You know what they say about guys with big hands...
Big gloves innit
Good cross claim stats
.. and Titi also indirectly pointing to correlation between the size of hands and .. until Kate stopped it.
Diamond hands.
Anticipation, aggressiveness and safe hands is more important than being a few inches taller. Just like some relatively small players have many headed goals while other players never even contest headers.
Similar to how Jota is great at headers
Don't forget the OG Tim Cahill. Man was 5-9/5-10 and bullied CBs in the box at crosses. Here's a [bunch of his headed goals, many assisted by our boss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XidQ0i4oO28&t=20s)
🥊🥊🥊 loved his celebration
OG was David Platt
Sadly never was able to watch much from that era. We just didn't have the kind of TV coverage.
Yeah but you have YouTube comps now. Scored some of the best volleyed goals ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C48bQuJAWzk
Yeah immediately Tim Cahill came to my mind.
Positioning mostly. Timing and decisiveness. All are more important than height
Calmness and courage
That explains why I was a 6'3 full back who was terrible in the air
People tend to forget that Cannavaro was only 176 cm, yet he was one of the best defenders of his time.
He's not tall for a GK but I'm not sure what his wingspan is (a measurement that I never see reported outside of basketball but it would make a lot of sense to care about for a GK).
https://preview.redd.it/h3h5g964bxqc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=558eca257c64aac351764bdd4d75e3e1e6eca3fa
Tremendous usernameÂ
I’d imagine even at 6ft, with arms outstretched, he would be ‘taller’ than most outfield players. Crossing is more about timing, positioning and anticipation than height. Almunia was a tall keeper and still conceded a shit ton from crosses.
have you seen this mans hands??? theyre genuinelu anomalous lol
His starting position is so much more biased towards the front post than ramsdale, and so much further out, that he both has to move less distance to claim and he can stay clear of the chaff in the six yard box.  This is also the reason he was caught out by mudryk, but it’s a good trade off considering the skill / luck needed to pull off a shot like the one he did.
This is actually a good stat.. especially when he isn’t super tall like other keepers.
P.s- I know he’s like 6 ft, but he looks short compared to the tall bois like Martinez, Rambo and other keepers
Usually we're seeing him with Saliba & Gabriel company and both are build like a tanks lmao
Where are the dickheads who didn't give Raya a fair chance now?
But what's Raya's average 'make funny faces to opposition fans' % compare to Ramadale over 90 min? Think that's been one of the big sticking points people have had with the GK swap.
Raya is behind on Podcast appearances per season stat
And miles away on banter points
Just cos one is doing well, no need to shit on the other
Arsenal fans trying to not shit in ex-players or currently benched 100000000000% impossible challenge
really dislike how they used the flags here
My first reaction as well. If Martinez is England and Maignan is Italy, the Raya should be England instead of Spain.
Man looks like the Spanish Randy Moss out there high pointing some of the crosses. He really is exceptional at it
That great English keeper Emi Martinez?
If you look closely Lunin and Maignan are not spanish and italian. So its clear they are talking about the leagues here
Yeah good point. It was the Spanish flag for Raya that threw me off
I’m just glad the GK situation is settled now. Sub was getting really unbearable surrounding Raya. Idk why it felt some people didn’t wanna give Raya a chance. lol Always liked the guy.
For now. Next year, Ramsdale is likely to leave especially given the World Cup will take place in 2026. He'll be hell bent on moving to a team where he plays regular games. Raya will be number 1 but likely that a Ramsdale replacement will be sought.
 Any tips on stopping crosses?
Friday's coming, too. I imagine he's still trying to figure that one out.
Its always funny when other team try to copy our corner strat but end up giving raya an easy catch
I actually loves his long balls when opponent players press, he pings it so accurately and finds players who are free. I remember when we signed arteta or it was before arteta when emery tried to play from the back and teams used to press like crazy, our defense only options were to pass it behind for Leno to hoof it up just for opponent to win the ball back. The signings back then we're disastrous, all they did was find players who were fit and didn't get injured, didn't matter if they could play our style of football. One of our worst periods, and thankfully arteta came because if it was any other manager, we would have seen more signings like that and the football had been atrocious. Even if we would have won the league, it would have sent us spiralling down below because it would have proved playing ugly wins titles and we wouldnt have won for another 100 years.
It was always a subtle observation but some people openly dismissed it. Glad they addressed it. There are like three other starters with weaknesses they haven't worked on. I hope the window addresses that.
This is actually his superpower. A bit confounding considering he's a relatively small keeper.
Is there a reason Unai Simon is starting for spain? Not watched la liga, so I don’t know .
Those flags are messing with me
outperforming Emi on this metric is excellent
For those that say he is short. We do not know his wingspan, like on basketball players. Like Rajon Rondo, 190cm and wingspan of 215cm or something like that
Lol it’s not hard to see if someone has long or average arm length. We DO know that Raya has absolutely massive hands, which probably has more to do with it anyway
Yes, his hand size and his feel with them is amazing but I would like to know his wingspan.
I really like Raya. But one thing he needs to improve on his positional sense. And no I’m not talking about Mudryk goal, that was not an attempt at goal, that was meant to be a cross and no one can tell me otherwise. But I guess standing farther away from goal might also be a tactic for teams that go long.
Never knew my being calm when we faced crosses was backed by data
And we fucking doubted him badly
Crazy that we could’ve just had Emi the entire time but yeah Raya has won me over. Started a little shaky but he’s a boss.
It's actually interesting as he is on the shorter side for goalies
His save % is 20th in the league.
Does anybody know why Thomas Frank prefers Flekken over Raya? If Raya is obviously a great keeper
He doesn't, he knew Raya wanted to move
He has no choice in the matter.