According to Fabrizio Romano, Arsenal have lodged a first bid for Brentford’s David Raya after agreeing personal terms with the goalkeeper.
It’s reported that the Gunners have offered £20 million as a fixed fee plus up to £3 million in add-ons. Brentford are on record as saying they are holding out for a fee closer to £40 million, so in all likelihood this first attempt will be rejected.
The Spain international – a former student of Gunners’ keeper coach Inaki Cana – has long been admired by Mikel Arteta and was the subject of a failed bid in 2020.
EXCL: Arsenal have submitted opening bid for David Raya to Brentford tonight. The proposal is worth £20m fixed fee plus £3m add-ons 🚨🔴⚪️ #AFC
Raya told Brentford that he wants the move as personal terms are already agreed. pic.twitter.com/PyEfro0tIu
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 3, 2023
Having already spent £200 million this summer, eyebrows were raised when links with Raya resurfaced a few days ago.
However, with Nottingham Forest interested in signing Matt Turner, it looks as though the club are keen to take the opportunity to sign a player who could properly rival Aaron Ramsdale for the number one shirt.
The 27-year-old has played twice for his country and has two full seasons of Premier League football under his belt having established himself in the Championship at the Bees following a move from Blackburn Rovers. In fact, he’s been in England so long – since 2012 – he actually counts as a Homegrown player.
Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern Munich both held talks with Raya earlier in the window but found Brentford’s asking price to be prohibitive.
It’ll be interesting to see how high Arsenal are willing to go and whether we try and sweeten the deal by including any of the long list of fringe players at the club.
I understand and I don’t understand
Feels like saka still isn’t backed up and we need a goal scorer uhn?
Havertz can play right wing, Trossard too (and Nelson). I think we’re ok on the right. Both can also play up top. The only reason to sign a striker is if there is something more to Jesus’ injury, which considering the repeat of the injury there could be. A big, technical forward (Giroud type) as an alternative to what we have would be the direction if needed for mine. But maybe we have that in havertz anyway. Not as a primary option, but a pretty solid alternative in scenarios when Jesus is injured. I’d still rather Florian is given a… Read more »
Even if Jesus was not injured there was still a need to bring in another striker as at least a decent back up or even first choice no 9. Jesus has a lot to his game, but Arsenal need a 25 goal a season player leading the line.
Given our priorities, I think this is stupid. He’s nearly 3 years older than Ramsdale and has a personal relationship with the goalkeeping coach. Which can only mean favouritism and a lack of meritocracy, no matter how you spin it. Raya has barely any statistical improvement, a few more saves, and a higher long ball percentage – because he was hitting Toney. Ramsdale also had outstanding long ball stats at Bournemouth and Sheffield. I don’t see anyone making that point. Personally, my eyes are drawn to his lack of stature and command of his box. If there was a stat… Read more »
He’ll only be England’s #1 when Southgate finally fucks off…
Well said. 100% agree.
Rúnarsson has a so called personal relationship too and he’s not exactly favoured. The goalkeeping coach would not survive if he applied favouritism – that’s nonsense. As far as priorities, it may not be obvious, but I dare say the club have their reasons. Unless you are in the know, I’m not sure how it can be ‘stupid’. Maybe hard to fathom, but not stupid.
Completely agree. I think this one goes over from ruthless competition into not putting trust into a player. He made some serious blunders last season but he’s still one of top 10 keepers in the world. I don’t see the massive improvement with Raya, and we’d lose an English player. The only thing I can think is if MA feels Ramsdale has gotten too big for his britches. Pure speculation, and I think if you want big personalities you need to accept some will have a bigger influence on the group.
why does this Romano charlatan still given space? The guy didn’t even know that Arsenal were interested in Raya and now all of a sudden he has the inside track?
Yeah, sadly a catchphrase goes a hell of a long way amongst children
“Lez do dis!”
“Sign da ting!”
Fantastic hahaha
Ornstein reported the interest, Romano broke the news about the bid.
That’s exactly how he works. Waits for a reliable source to post something regarding a transfer and then puts 1 + 1 together and runs with it.
Not sure it’s fair to call Romano a charlatan, annoying as he is. He clearly has his sources and as far as I know he’s yet to be wrong about a transfer – probably the only “ITK” except David Ornstein that you can properly trust when it comes to confirmed bids and signings.
I’d agree charlatan probably isn’t the right word, but he is something of a go between official sources and the media which isn’t going to make everyone happy. A club knows that leaking a bid to him is probably in their favour in terms of driving up prices and generating interest. Similarly the buying club might leak things about personal information to try to help them force a deal through.
With Jesus out for a ‘few weeks’ & who knows how many more times with a related injury through this season, how on earth does spending this money on a keeper make sense when we need a striker?
After an excellent transfer window, this is ridiculous.
Depends who else we are planning to sign
How do you know we’re not also looking for a striker? Everyone who keeps on shouting this, maybe get it in your head that it’s not just about what we need but also who’s available that we’d want and could possibly get. There isn’t just a magic hat where you throw money in and out pops the player you want in the exact position you want.
Keep in mind it’s not just about finding a striker, it’s about finding a really good one, who’s also the sort of good person that you’d want to add to this dressing room, who also has the kind of humble fighting team-first mentality Arteta wants, who also fits our style of play, and who wants to come to us, and whose team would consider selling to us. I don’t think too many players check all of those boxes, hell there might even not be any right now, and I’m almost sure our scouting department is keeping tabs on most if… Read more »
Exactly this, our recruiting analysts have a list of potential striker targets that meet those requirements. When one comes available we will pursue it but even then it’s not 100% guaranteed they will be successful. I think we dodged a bullet with not getting Mudryk.
Maybe we should just go in for Werghost after his scintillating display for United last season, right? After all, We need a striker
Isn’t everyone looking for this mythical striker except Man City
If true, this is stupid. I’d be fine with no more signings but if anything we should be looking up front, and not at the back.
why? If anything we have strenghtned even more in that area since we lost Jesus last year for 3 months and we more than coped then
Arsenal last season had multiple persons scoring. That was a shift from a main-striker format. I see them continuing in that form. Jesus acts as a catalyst for the other goal scorers, Trosaad should do so as well.
Goalies aren’t immune from freak injuries. Would you be okay with Matt Turner between the sticks for PL and CL games if Rams were out for a couple of months?
Yes I’d be fine with Turner. Same risk as other top teams live with.
I think David Raya for about £20m is a good deal but maybe not a particularly necessary one. £40m seems a waste of resources.
Not a good deal if it unnecessarily unsettles ramsdale who has been great for us since he arrived and is an absolute leader on and off the pitch for us! If true, Raya will not be coming in as a backup…he’s at starter level in any team. Stupid move that will damage team dynamic AND we have other areas to strengthen first.
Nah it will keep Ramsdale on his toes and also allow him to have a rest now and then
Eye brows certainly raised by this but as proven before, trust the process.
Arsenal being ruthless and aside from the low bid, not messing about.
I like it
Stop obsessing over low first bids.
If we get him for anything closer to 30m than 40 this will probably be a great deal. If it doesn’t work out for him or Ramsdale one of them could easily be sold for the same price or more next year. Dont get me wrong I love Ramsdale so I hope he’s the one who ends up the long term number 1, but should anything happen to him I’d sure be glad to have Raya to back him up, even just for one season. And maybe if he plays a few games less it could keep him more focused… Read more »
Let them have Balogun and pay us £20m 🤣
We’ve already got 5 keepers. Let’s offer brentford 3 of them in a swap.
Almunia and Lehman used to try and injure each other in training so they’d get to play at the weekend. Just sayin’.
Ugh bloody Almunia. We’ve had worse players than him, but like with Mustafi I don’t think any played as many games as they did
Anyway Lehmann got the last laugh, briefly unretiring at 43 to be selected ahead of a fit Almunia for our annual top 4 run in
I love what this signing signifies more than the signing itself. Absolutely ruthless to make a signing like this when Ramsdale been excellent. Love the attitude!
It’s signings like this that really make me optimistic about Arteta and his push for growth. As a fan I’d be inclined to give Ramsdale the starting spot till 2040 plus my first born son and Arteta is clearly very fond of him too, but as a professional that doesn’t stop him bringing in direct competition to keep pushing and evolving the team.
I feel if we had Wenger (or maybe even Klopp) we’d still be playing Leno.
I’m much more on board with this signing knowing he counts as a Home Grown player (assuming for CL too). It always seemed a waste for me for a backup goalkeeper to take up an international spot.
At this point we should just begin with the 3rd bid
Then the 3rd bid would be higher
Has anyone wondered what would happen if Ramsdale got injured? Not sure Turner fits the bill as a substitute keeper of the same grade.
Anyone know if he uses Ivan Toney’s bookie?
For me, saka & Gabriel Jesus’ backups would have been of more priority.
Trossard is Jesus backup. I think Nelson / Viera are Saka’s. Less convincing but Nelson was quality at times last season and we have alot of good attacking options
Context is key to transfers.
If, big italicised, emboldened, underlined, if, the rumours are true and we’re selling Turner for a deal up to £20m, this makes sense.
If Brentford contacted us today and said ‘we’ll swap Raya for Turner plus £10m’ I’m pretty certain most of us would jump at the chance. If we get him for around £30m and Turner goes for around £20m, that’s essentially what we’re doing.
I’m very comfortable with this transfer.
Nervous that we lack a Saka back-up, especially with dodgy-knees Jesus out in the sidelines. Nelson, Vieira, etc ain’t doing it for me.
Though I guess I could say the same for Ramsdale; so I’ll just come full circle and trust the process.
No way we should spend more than 25 mill on this. Chavs just got Brighton’s Sanchez for about that, and he had 2 years left on his contract.
Sánchez is also absolutely terrible tnf
This is a bit like buying Laca and then buying Auba a few months later: sometimes you take advantage of what the market offers. Here we’d lock up two outstanding keepers, run an experiment for a year or two, and then keep the best of the best. With fee payments spread over several years, the actual transfer cost would only be that portion paid while we held both keepers. One or the other will turn into income at some point. The “dependable back-up goal scoring striker” market is extremely thin. Agree we could use someone in Saka’s position who isn’t… Read more »
These arsenal fans… when we weren’t buying players, you complain, when arteta is trying to push this team, through all kinds of motivation ( top class competition) u complain….
Look at City, with all their defensive riches,(Stones, Dias, laporte, Ake, Akanji, ) they’ve just gone and bought gvardiol..
Don’t tell me it’s different with goalies… What if ramsdale is injured for months?
We have close to 60 game’s this season, give everyone 30/30, everyone is happy..
So relax, Arteta knows more than you
No passengers. All fighters