According to The Athletic, Arsenal are “exploring a deal” for Brentford goalkeeper David Raya.
While the Gunners have tied down Aaron Ramsdale to a new long-term deal, Mikel Arteta is keen to recruit a player who can provide stiff competition between the sticks as his side looks to compete on four fronts.
Brentford manager Thomas Frank, admitted yesterday that Raya is available to buy “at the right price”.
Various reports have cited an asking price close to £40 million, a figure that made Sp*rs, who held a serious interest in the 27-year-old, walk away from a deal in June.
Arsenal attempted to sign Raya in 2020 – the summer Emi Martinez left for Aston Villa – but had a £10 million offer rejected.
We’ve subsequently signed three keepers; Ramsdale, our undisputed number one, and back-ups Alex Runarsson and Matt Turner.
Having spent the last two seasons on loan, Runarsson is fully expected to leave the club before the transfer window closes.
The push for Raya suggests the writing is also on the wall for Turner. The American enjoyed a solid debut season in England but is yet to convince anyone at Arsenal that he has the distribution skills necessary to facilitate Arteta’s playing style.
Having impressed for the USA at the World Cup, and in their recent Nations League and Gold Cup campaigns, Turner certainly has the credentials to succeed at a high level.
Interestingly, David Ornstein writes that Nottingham Forest are keeping tabs on his situation.
If we are really going to sell Turner, I wouldn’t mind picking Raya up. Would really push Ramsdale and keep him on his toes, potentially even push him out of the first XI.
Considering we could get 20m for Turner, getting someone like Raya for just 20ish more wouldn’t be that bad.
I love your optimism.
He’s a Ray-a sunshine!
I can’t see anyone paying £20m for Turner when we couldn’t even a half of that for Bernd Leno.
Let’s not call this one too early. Times might have changed in our selling department, we are out of Covid, and the league is getting washed with Saudi money that will trickle through.
Matt Turner to Saudi here we go?!
This.
I kind of think that the arrival of Raya will unsettle Ramsdale a bit. I see Aaron as someone who needs stability and plain sailing to give his best.
His best form was absolutely when he first arrived and still had Leno breathing down his neck in fairness.
Would have to disagree. Rambo came in at a time when Leno was the firm favourite no1. We all remember how quickly that changed. He’s the best example for himself, that if you impress Mikel and show him you are the best option to execute his gameplan you will get your shot.
Rambo didn’t have it easy then, he won’t have it easy now (if we get Raya I mean).
Arguably this could be a reason for the need to get Raya in. Ramsdale’s best period was when he was competing with Leno. Additionally, any fall off in form was when he was the undisputed number one possibly leading to complacency. If Turner is not seen as adequate competition, then someone like Raya could be the solution.
Ramsdale isn’t as good as Arsenal fans would like to believe. He let’s in too much cheap goals
I don’t agree tbh. He has shown character and been superb in many games. He has had a lot of world-quality moments this year.
I wonder if this is actually Brentford’s way to try and get Bayern to make an acceptable offer, using our previous interest in Raya and Inaki Cana being the goalkeeping coach.
Would be a good addition.
Welcome home son.
A warning for Ramsdale or serious interest: works either way.
Elite squad building.
Just when you think everything is ok, Arsenal try and sign a goalie.
As a devout Ramsdalian, I don’t really get this. Raya is a first choice premier league goalkeeper. And although depth in most positions is vital, at GK it’s not as necessary. Most clubs have a seriously underwhelming second choice.
Which makes me think that Arteta isn’t 100% on Aaron. The guy made some astonishing saves last season and was recently crowned the worlds most valuable goalkeeper.
I’m confused.
Please, people more intelligent than me, enlighten me.
Unless Raya is an inverted goalkeeper. Then it makes absolute sense.
Then we can play Zinchenko in goal and Aaron and Raya can sit in front of Odegaard and just mop up and play line splitting passes.
This made me laugh so hard, inverted goalkeeper 🙂 good one!
You may laugh. But Arteta inverts everything.
His wife made him a dippy egg last week and, by the time she turned back from the stove, he was dipping the egg in the soldiers.
When she questioned him, he mumbled something about predictability and then poured a dry bowl of Cheerios over his head before placing his little finger in a bowl of semi-skimmed milk.
I thought that’s what Mikel brought Havertz for. It’s that false 9 as a left 8 inverting from midfield towards goal while Timber de-inverts from right centre-half methodista in front of a sweeper keeper. It makes us less predictable.
Lol
I am invertedly confused.
John Wesley founded the methodistas, right?
inverted laughter
Funny but serioustly, I saw a team playing with an inverted left-footed goalie. He would push up to left centre defenders position, and the defender would push up to left back. The goalie was the freaking playmaker in the build-up fase, the same as Mertesacker used to be, throwing long balls to the wingers or hard balls through the middle. The goalie was more of an active player outside the penalty box in the offensive plays. When not in possesion of the ball, he would position himself perfectly so that the running towards the goalposts wasn’t far. It was literally… Read more »
The stats suggest that Ramsdale isn’t as fantastic as we make him out to be. For example, stats suggest that Raya is a better distributor of the ball. He played more passes, and was more successful in his long passes. There are explanations for this as Arsenal play far away from our goal to involve Ramsdale too much, and we also don’t have Toney and Da Silva to launch long balls who make sure it’s a successful pass most of the time… Away from passing, Raya faced twice the number of shots Ramsdale did last season, and only conceded 3… Read more »
Ok, yeah, I hear all the stats. So the basic argument is that Raya is the better GK on paper. But let’s talk practicals. We just signed Ramsdale down to a long term deal on big money. And we paid £30m for him. So what’s the long term thought patten here? Are we thinking of selling Aaron? And obviously that can’t happen this summer. So we sell him next summer. After he’s likely been usurped. And we will get our £30m back? And someone will take him off our hands and pay his big wages? I dunno. I know we… Read more »
We like wasting really good keepers. Just look back a little.
If that’s a Stuart Taylor reference then you are preaching to the choir brother.
1) Szczesny
2) Martinez
3) Leno
Totally agree with you Norwegian Wood. With the three new additions this summer, I think we’ve gotten to the point in our recruitment process and team building where further improvements will be marginal. This pursuit makes sense to me in that light: if we can get an excellent keeper who appears to have the edge on Ramsdale when it comes to building from the back AND not pay above market rate (whatever that means these days), possibly even below given his expiring contract, this has every chance of improving us. This does not appear to be a Rice signing where… Read more »
We shouldn’t orient ourselves by what “most clubs” do. We’re aiming to be the best in the world right now, and having two potentially world class goalkeepers could mean the difference between a major trophy and no trophy, all you need is one injury or one red card, which can happen and has happened. Plus Ramsdale is still very young by GK standards and there’s no guarantee his next season will be as good as his last one, especially if he can rest of his laurels knowing he’s got the starting spot secured, and he still can’t stop a penalty… Read more »
This is us taking all competitions seriously – in the past we’ve had an obvious second choice goalie between the sticks and that has cost us in cup competitions. With Raya and Ramsdale we’re strong in that position even if we rotate.
This! Especially when one of the cups we’re in for this time is the CL. Are you all comfortable with Turner all the way into the elimination rounds / quarterfinals, say? Will we make it out of the group stage given his known limitations with playing out from the back?
There’s no way Turner was ever going to play CL games this season.
Ok, maybe we should just have two really good goalkeepers that can be constantly interchanged. But I do think there’s a reason why clubs don’t do that. The way a goalkeeper FEELS to a defence is important. We all saw that when loud and brash Ramsdale took over from quiet and introverted Leno. It changed the entire mentality of the back line. And you want that stuff to be consistent. I’ll always trust A&E when it comes to this stuff. Whether it’s Balogun or Emile or Fabio or Timber, they see and know a lot more than me. I’m just… Read more »
He’s not going anywhere. And the main reason I think most clubs don’t do it is because most elite keepers aren’t happy to play second fiddle and sit most of the season on the bench. But if you can find one that will do it, even just for one season, I think you go for it.
“Most clubs don’t do it”–I can’t think of *any*.
I don’t think so. There’s a reason that even the very best teams in the world, including every winner of the Premier League for many years, have such a big gap between the first-choice and the second-choice keeper, much bigger than the gap in talent they would tolerate at any other position. It’s just absurd to think that a supremely rich and well-run club like Man City–with a manager even more obsessed than Arteta at getting every single advantage possible–wouldn’t have bought someone like Raya if it made any sense. The only reason to do this is with an expectation… Read more »
I don’t think any top keeper wants to go to Man City where they’ll clearly be second choice behind Ederson, so it doesn’t really matter how much City would be willing to spend on it. Ramsdale is different, he hasn’t yet established himself like that and probably Raya would feel he has a better chance against him than at any other top club.
Ramsdale has been getting poorer progressively and Raya is better than him in all stats, quite clear Arteta wants a better goalie
Absolute nonsense.
Ramsdale has a few world class games/saves everyone remembers but let’s in too many soft goals. 7AMKickoff did a break down where he found Ramsdale is very weak on shots from outside the box. GiantGooner on the ArsenalVision Pod thinks he is the weakest link in the starting line up and would prefer any of Leno, Martinez, or Raya. A world class defence has hidden a lot of Ramsdales shortcomings. People are just in love with the personalty and honestly not that good at assessing quality in this position. Statistically his shot stopping is bang average, and his distribution is… Read more »
I’m surprised at the ratio of upvotes to downvotes. You’ve said what I keep thinking but am too scared to say. His saving technique seems to be “fall towards the ball” instead of leaping towards it, which I think is why he gets beaten from long range more than you would expect. I also think it’s why he never gets near penalties so has to move early and then sells himself. He also has some pretty chocolate-y wrists at times. He is suspect at his near post (Maddison at home to Leicester, Bowen away to West Ham, for example). His… Read more »
We really are going for it
How much would we be willing to pay for Raya? What’s a solid backup go for? 18mil?
Don‘t think we‘ll ever buy back up players under Arteta again. It‘s all about competition for places.
Total faith in the process but if we sign Raya for 40m and sell Flo for something similar I will be as perplexed as……..a perplexed person on perplexed street.
I really hope that United buying that Hojlund kid with 8 goals in Serie A for 75m€ gives us all the leverage we need when it comes to potential destinations for Balogun.
At least get it right. He’s scored 9 goals
I don’t think we have much to say considering we spent 65m on Havertz which is almost as much as Chelsea paid for him – with disappointing returns.
That’s not to say I think he’s rubbish, but I wouldn’t talk too much about other teams spunking money on players who seem to be a bit overpriced..
Looking through a perplex window?
Ramsdale needs the competition he is getting too complacent, definitely needs his spot under threat
Where is all the evidence Ramsdale is complacent. He isn’t perfect and never has been. He may be worse than Raya, but how do you know helia mindset is complacent?
I agree about the competition. I think Rammers performances were best when he had competition (Leno). But there is another angle here, maybe Rammers is carrying an injury, maybe Artera is thinking, if we lose Rammers to an injury what have we got? Is turner good enough to challenge for the PL and the answer is probably no. We’ve all seen what injuries have done to us the last two seasons…. Mitigating that now is smart
Not sure what to think about this to be honest. Raya and Ramsdale are broadly equal and similar age, so I’d guess one would have league and the other Europe and Cups? The idea that they’ll be in competition with each other and push each other to improve makes perfect sense on paper, but I can’t think of many examples of similar scenarios working elsewhere? Keepers seem to do better with hierarchy, an established number 1 giving consistency.
Raya is nearly 3 years older than Ramsdale
In that case he’s definitely only moving somewhere to be number 1
And he seriously believes it is Arsenal
Even though turner is the one being replaced, signing Raya is more of a message to Ramsdale than Turner himself.
I would expect us to get around £15millfor Turner, which is good business for all (100% profit and NF get USA number 1 keeper with age on his side). Raya is a class act and saves so many shots. Will be interesting competition between Ramsdale and Raya. I like Turner as a person and if he stays then so be it. If he moves on to be number 1 for another prem team, then he goes with me thanking him for being a top guy and all the luck moving forwards, bar vs is of course !
On what precedent are you guys expecting us to get good money for Turner (or even Ramsdale if it costs costs that)? We’re in a better place, yes, but we’ve seen nothing yet so far, have we?
Some players you don’t see do anything and they have a good World Cup and their prices rocket. He’s done well for USA and is only 12months into his contract…you really would expect profit from this
Last I check, Edu is still in charge and we’re still the bad-at-selling Arsenal unless something else happens
Oh. I did make a mess of that comment
The new ruthlessness of this regime is kind of refreshing. A bit sad but these guys really aren’t playing around – no room for passengers in this team
Really? We’ve still got a ton of them on the books and can’t sell any of them. Buying a keeper for 40mil makes fck all sense when we have England’s best on our books. Not impressed at all with this idea.
This is a really interesting potential signing.
Ramsdale is the best shot-stopper in the Premier League but always seems to have a mistake in him, especially with the ball at his feet. And he’s rubbish at saving penalties. And he looked awful in the US.
Would Raya come in as a number 2? He’s too good to be a back-up, isn’t he? Other big clubs were also interested in him.
Could this be the beginning of the end for Ramsdale?
Like I said: interesting…
Ramsdale is nowhere near the best shot stopper in the league, in fact I think it’s his biggest weakness. He’s obviously capable of incredible saves but lets in too many really soft ones. I think he has a tendency to over-anticipate and his footwork is quite clumsy, sort of lurches, legs quite wide apart in a low stance. Makes him slow to shift his weight back if the shot is mishit or well disguised Compared to Leno for instance whose footwork is far more precise and poised, and is a much more consistent shot stopper as a result – the… Read more »
You sound like a goalkeeper yourself, PE
Yes, never reached a particularly high level and after my knee exploded that won’t change, but I’ve had enough training from actual GK coaches to feel like I understand the position more than the average fan
Leno better than ramsdale? You’re having a laugh mate.
Leno’s overall game isn’t better, but purely as a shot stopper he is up there with the best in the world, whereas Ramsdale really isn’t
I think Leno is a good example of how playing for a mid-table side with a deep defensive line, not so much emphasis on playing short out of the back, and relatively little scrutiny is less challenging than playing for a big club playing expansively. It’s hard to tell whether Raya will struggle similarly if he makes the step up, which makes it very difficult to compare the 2
Absolute agree that Leno is a better shot stopper but his foot works sucks and distribution is poor. You can’t judge a goal-keeper based solely on short stopping ability these days. As per the Athletic, Ederson is way way down the list of premier league goalies when it comes to short stopping. And he faced only 80 shots which is 60 less than Ramsdale and 130 less than Allison who is on top of the list. You think Guardiola will swap him for any of those others mentioned? No chance. city is okay with oppositions taking shots but they don’t… Read more »
Nothing against him, but Turner and Leno are better shot-stoppers than Ramsdale to name just 2
It’s important to drive Raya’s price up for other teams. If we fail and can pick him up at a reasonable price … bingo!
But to be an Arteta player surely he has to be two footed and play in at least 3 or 4 positions no?
We need 2 top class gk one play in league the other play in Champs League
Arterta needs a goalkeeper that can invert as a LB when Zichenko is unavailable
Echoing many others here, it doesn’t make sense to me. If we are paying this kind of money, he won’t be a backup in the sense that Turner has been. Why would we not use the money on another attacking mid instead?
Brentford have long been my ‘little club’ and under relatively new owner Matthew Benham, head coach Thomas Franks and director of football Phil Giles, have (like Brighton) become a blueprint for small clubs in a big world.
A toss-up for Brentford’s best ever ‘keepers between “Wor-Chesney” (on loan from us – west London spelling!) and Raya. My generation probably give it to the former, those in the know undoubtedly to the latter. He’s technically very good and very Arsenal today.And doesn’t go for a sneaky fag.
I think there is a big negative to the Brentford model that I hope other clubs never follow–they ended their academy because it is not cost-effective compared to buying young players that others have developed. (This is not an issue for the biggest clubs like Arsenal, but one would hope that clubs like Southampton continue to develop young players.)
There is a rule for Teams in top division to build up academy within certain years. They did what they had to and they actually rebuilt their academy last year as well.
Don’t do it.
Isn’t everyone missing the point here? Turner wants first team football so will leave. We need a replacement and Raya, who is admired by people at the club, is available at a knockdown price as he’s into the last 12 months of his contract.
His position at the club will be different to Turner’s as he won’t be a clear backup. There will now be a struggle between Raya and Ramsdale, over the next few months we’ll see who is the best. Let battle commence.
Not missing the point. 40 mil is expensive for a keeper of his track record. And he’s not being looked at as a back-up so he’s not a replacement for Turner. All this would do is unsettle Ramsdale who has been excellent for Arsenal and is a leader in the dressing room and on the field. Why make him unsettled? Surely we can scout an up and coming youngster to fill turner’s role rather than a 27 yr old who is looking for game time at a big club?
Totally get that Raya is an excellent keeper However Ramsdale kick started Arsenal ! He’s a young lad & in my eyes he’s our keeper for the next ten years I rate him that highly ! It’s not all about the saves its the mentality & the passion & the connection to us Gooners ! Raya would push him hard but Ramsdale is the number 1 & doesn’t deserve the adverse (penalty saves aside!) comments on here ! Ask the defenders who they’d rather have ?
This is strange, and not a move I would have expected at this point. Ramsdale seems to have stalled a bit. His pre-season wasn’t great. So competition for him might be in order. But wasn’t really expecting it to come from outside the club. Turner has improved. And was already a better shot-stopper and penalty keeper Ramsdale. So I would have thought give Turner more matches and see what happens. Moving for Raya surely puts the #1 role straight into the mixer.
Maybe I stand alone, but I’ve always been underwhelmed by David Raya. Good distribution, but suspect in the air. £40m feels an awful lot of money for 1 year on his deal.
I was under the impression there were other reasons ($$) to have an American in the squad. Turner made sense being so close to the US national team setup, but I thought Trusty was brought in to garner additional support on that side of the Atlantic. I did not take him seriously as ever having a chance and saw him strictly as a token purchase. We are a business and there are a lot of US supporters of the PL. I was really surprised by the success Trusty had in Birmingham. Old club, tradition, midlands – so for a yank,… Read more »
I have a very high opinion of this player. This is further proof of the elite talent ID at the club right now. Of all the PL keepers I watched last season, I was most impressed by him in terms of his ability on the ball. He also makes good decisions and seldom flaps at stuff or comes off his line at the wrong time. Much like Ederson, he has outstanding outlet passes in his locker but mercifully doesn’t have the penchant for the crazy give aways. As usual with Arsenal purchases these days, he’s already established in the PL… Read more »
It might be as simple as stopping penalties. No matter how good a team you are, you will need pens to win a knockout competition these days. Ramsdale in the keague, Raya in the cups.
IMHO; I think that having these two keepers battling it out for the #1spot will damage their mentality’s more than it will enhance performance. I think it’s a bad idea.