How David Raya has made Arsenal near impenetrable, and how it’s likely to get better
Owing to some prolonged stints on the infamous Arsenal Ticket Exchange, and to generous friends when my aggressive clicking strategy earned me stints in CAPTCHA jail, I was fortune enough to see the majority of David Raya’s initial stretch at the Emirates — basically everything up until Brighton, bar Man City. As someone who has previous on the Raya bandwagon, I was pretty excited to see who was essentially the Arteta GK get his time in the red and white of North London, switching from the white and red of West.
The results were less than pretty. In the last few years, it takes a special sort of man to elicit a negative response from the current crop of Arsenal faithful, and it seemed Raya had struck that irritable chord perfectly, allowing discontent to resonate from seat to seat and through to the media booths. What we were promised wasn’t what we were getting.
We were told that Ramsdale was rash, mistake-prone, worse in the air and worse with his feet, and that Raya was a definitive improvement on all counts. Within 20 minutes of his second home game, vs Man City, Raya had misjudged a cross, passed the ball away cheaply, and been pressed into oblivion by Álvarez, followed by similar mistakes at Chelsea to wash away any good faith he might’ve had left. For a crowd that had become fairly comfortable with ball-playing GKs since Leno, Raya had brought back the nerves, and in a far angrier way now that title-charge golden boy Ramsdale was gone too. Defending someone everyone around you is desperate to boo is tough, and Raya was losing even the most ardent Caña-pilled sickos (me), boosted by nearly costing Arsenal what should’ve been easy points at Kenilworth Road (have you seen that away end btw!?!? 😂).
Two months later then and owing to some ballot luck, I was fortune enough to see Arsenal spank table-toppers LFC at the weekend, and enjoy Raya’s best Arsenal performance to date. The crowd are slowly growing behind him, and it seems we’re close to getting the man who was promised. Suddenly discussions about GK preference are being replaced by discussions of just how good we are defensively. So.. is Raya good now? Is that it, is the argument over? Well, let’s discuss.
Method
My main ~thing~ is set-pieces, and in order to avoid stepping on GK-specialists’ toes and bringing in some more ‘vibes’ analysis of shot-stopping and defending, this is what we’ll be primarily judging from. I’m going to include some set-piece-adjacent things, like second phases from corners (think half-space crosses), but considering we’ve only given up 13xG total in league open-play this season, and nearly a third of goals conceded are set-pieces, I think this is a fairly good weighting for assessing Raya. After all, a main benefit of Raya defensively is supposedly his claiming, so let’s validate this.
This will naturally be compared to Ramsdale last season plus his fleeting appearances this season. All good? Good.
Part 1 — A pro of proactivity
The first thing that stands out to me in these rewatches is the difference in style for the two goalkeepers, which may sound slightly bizarre given the signing didn’t feel like a large jump — not compared to something like trading DDG for Onana. On a statistical level, it’s in fact been bigger than that exchange, but especially in terms of set-pieces, the different is night and day.
My statistics teacher would violently hate this but I think it’s fine for show the significance of the leap Ramsdale to Raya has been, compared to one we all assumed would be far greater — also, very very funny how easy it is to score a set-piece vs Utd
Unsurprisingly for someone who has now spent 2 seasons in the top 5 percentiles for % of crosses stopped per fbref, Raya is hyper-proactive, perhaps looking to offset his physical disadvantages by snuffing out crosses early before this can seriously become a problem (For context, Raya is shorter than 8 regular outfielders, and closer to Zinchenko than Kai Havertz per Transfermarkt).
This noticeably hurt him in open-play (Mudryk definitely meant it guys, trust me), but on set-pieces this courage makes him a large pain in the ass for opposition crosses. For any inswinger, Raya is constantly preparing himself for a claim, and will gobble up anything that enters his immediate zone — usually within about ~8 yards. We’ve seen this from early on into his tenure, but these got slightly lost in the deluge of early gelling errors — see this safe claim vs Everton, another vs City, and this hefty punch from the same game.
What helps as well is the general cleanliness of actions — it’s not so much that these are just claims amongst big pressure, but these are also strong claims. There are no bounces, no dribbles along the floor, no flaps — stuff like this emanates from the goalkeeper’s gloves to the rest of the side. If you’re looking to dominate a game and extinguish hope in an opposition pressing for an equaliser, there’s no better way to shut that shit down than to get your mitts on it and lie down for a while.
This cleanliness helps at the other end — it’s perhaps no wonder we’re seeing an influx of throw-led counters from Raya given his immaculate control of the ball.
Compare this then to Ramsdale last season, and it’s all a bit stark. Ramsdale can have good claims, but at a far lower frequency than Raya; Ramsdale electing to stick to his line more on deliveries into his area than go out and chase them. Even in Ramsdale’s best moments, (his valuable claim vs Palace earlier this year, his punch on the corner vs Southampton), the contact is rarely clean. Compare that to Raya’s big claim vs Wolves in a tight game and in an even more forward position, and you have a clear example of a core difference between the two.
This seems to be a preference thing, where Ramsdale is much more comfortable, and also quite good at, reacting to chances than proactively snuffing them out (for a statistical confirmation of this, Raya is stopping 1.5 crosses a game currently per fbref, nearly 3 times as many as Ramsdale did last season, on basically the same rate of incoming), and you can see this more widely on how the side in general sets up with the two in net. This is isn’t always the best thing, as Ramsdale can often give himself an insane challenge of a save through this avoidance of proactivity when an early claim is available, but hey GK’s are their own animal.
Ramsdale’s cross collection, especially from corners/corner-like free-kicks, is very much reactive, and wholly inconsistent as a result. Ramsdale will not be forcing his way out early to establish himself, in fact the majority of his punches/claims will be relatively close to the line, arguably a reflection he’s deciding on these very late. As a result of this, Ramsdale has had… issues with communication with his nearby defenders which Raya has avoided in these situations*, wherein defenders are being forced to assume Ramsdale isn’t claiming, and react late when he decides he is.
*Raya has had communication issues, see WHU H, but not with the ball in the air like this
3 big cases of this are Man Utd H, WHU A, and LFC H, where Ramsdale decides that ‘oh wait this is mine actually’ whilst his defenders are already up and competing — this is the kind of mental mishmash that gets you 2 near-post OGs and a looped header conceded to a heavily bandaged 5ft9 quasi-CB.
Raya meanwhile has a regularity to his claims that the backline seemingly relish, and which likely boosts his claiming cleanliness I mentioned earlier. Watch in the clips below, looking pretty closely at the players in Raya’s vicinity.
What you see is that as soon as the ball enters the “Raya zone”, Gabriel and Saliba look to become straight blockers for men crashing or trying to interrupt the claim. There are no thoughts here of “hm what if my GK stays on his line here”, because there’s now a much smaller chance of that happening. Ramsdale meanwhile has a lot of players close-by looking to react to his reactive decision, which in my mind is damaging the quality of his claims and the overall structure of the side in these moments — to be clear, this is not a mental analysis, but one based on proximity and how this is all, consistently, playing out.
This is a skillset that translates through to these ‘second phase’ moments, as Raya’s continued proactivity makes an attacker’s job far more difficult, as crosses now don’t just have to get into a general area — they have to do so whilst taking a strong aerial GK out as well. Palace has a fantastic example of this below — where we win the first contact but Palace retain a presence on the edge — Raya stays high and proactive, and works to make the cross either worse (by aiming nearer or further) or harder (getting it with enough pace where Raya isn’t plucking it). From here, Arsenal go onto score their 3rd, within 12 seconds of the claim.
I think a good thing to look at here is the Liverpool away games for both respective goalkeepers, and note how these demonstrate the core of their individual qualities. It’s got to be said there’s a bunch of variables here (it’s football, after all, and it’s Rob Holding, after all), but Ramsdale was also 2–0 up vs a much worse LFC so I feel it slightly negates it.
In the 23/24 encounter, David Raya made four claims, doing a pretty good job at eliminating aerial threat from LFC’s end, facing 19 crosses total. In 22/23 meanwhile, Ramsdale faced 24, and claimed exactly none. Wyscout tracks goalkeeper movements off the line in a game via the ‘Exits’ logging, and whilst it’s not an exact science, its fairly good for recording in general. Ramsdale has 0 exits logged from this game, and this negativity from the back is part of what sucks Arsenal deeper and deeper in, eventually leading to 2–2 and very nearly 3–2 — which Ramsdale prevents excellently. But this is exactly where you see the benefits of Ramsdale, in moments of reactivity. Salah’s effort, Konaté’s chance, all the way back to Maddison’s free-kick, all huge reactive pieces of goalkeeping which you likely won’t see from Raya, as he’s creating entirely different situations.
Part 2 — Aaron Ramsdale’s theory of gravity
Speaking of creating different situations, let’s bring this back to some grittier ground, and analyse how the respective traits of the ‘keepers influence wider set-piece structure — but first, a quick science break.
The general theory of gravity goes that the heavier an object is, the larger attractive force it exhibits on the object around it. It’s why the moon orbits us and not the other way round. I’d like to finally use my degrees and propose an alternate, within the bounds of corners.
The stronger the attachment between a goalkeeper and their goal-line, the larger gravitational force they exhibit on the other 21 players on the pitch and the ball as a transactional body.
This theory is being workshopped, but I’ll do my best to show what I’m on about here.
Take a look at these 4 corners with Aaron Ramsdale in net. These are 4 random corners selected from Wyscout from last season, with no bias about opponent or gamestate, and are generally quite reflective of the strategy both us and opponents will utilise when our #1 is picked.
Now, take a look at these 4 with Raya in net.
Can we see what I’m talking about a bit now? My best feelings about Raya come from this sort of image, as it’s basically the only way we’re going to get easy contrast between the keepers barring Ramsdale getting an extended run between the posts again.
You’ll be right to notice that the general structure is fairly similar, in terms of the position of our zonal markers and the ratio of these to man markers. There are micro changes here: vs Fulham you can see the far side zonal markers (Gab and Saliba) creeping out a bit compared to before, going from basically holding Ramsdale’s hand to joining the man markers on the pen spot, the far post sitter has also moved closer to the taker (see Zinchenko vs LFC compared to Saliba vs WHU/NFFC), and also consider the Brentford corner (1st section, bottom left) is also an outswinger, and generally compare the depth to that vs FFC — but this, like WHU maybe be influenced by Brentford electing to have two takers close by, in which case meaning Arsenal have to prepare for an outswinger and an inswinger.
What I’m primarily interested in here is the opposition, as this tells us a lot about their thoughts on our GK (and isn’t this the most important? See: everyone sitting on James Trafford). With Ramsdale, it is far likelier to see a conglomeration of players within 6–8 yards of his goal; teams are, in general, far less respectful of his claiming and spatial control than they are with Raya, and as such teams are a lot more confident sending the ball into ‘the mixer within the mixer’. As a result, our markers are drawn deeper, often overlapping into what predominantly should be a keeper claim zone, at the front of the 6 — this is what notably screwed Tomiyasu and Kiwior earlier. The volume of players this close to our goal-line does a few things: it makes us much more likely to lose a general structure in defence, runners passing between markers and everything that comes with that and damaging the chance of an Arsenal first contact: it forces us further back, meaning fewer players are well-positioned for counters barring suicidal tactics (Hola, Emi Martinez): it means our goalkeeper, who is already reactive in claims, is essentially nullified in the play, as the bodies between him and the ball increase and form a sturdy block.
This last point is doubled by the fact that Ramsdale is especially prone to blocking — most corners last season Ramsdale finds at least one marker close to him, leading to goals vs Everton and Villa, with some teams like Man Utd using multiple to secure themselves the space in front of the goal, and clear out the wider part of the goal as everything is drawn into Ramsdale’s gravitational field. Ramsdale’s lack of ‘clean’ actions can be partially attributed to his relationship with his own players, but also to his relationship with the opposition too — unless you have blockers working for you like Raya often does now, it becomes a bunch harder to make proper contact, especially with how many bodies Ramsdale invites into his zone.
Raya has far more command, with it needing a far more coordinated block to stand a chance of locking him out, but this in turn invites an alternative strategy from opposition. Whereas last year outswingers were seemingly a matter of opposition preference when playing Arsenal (Trent and Ward-Prowse for example will outswing on the RHS for their teams), this year it feels like a solution to the Raya problem. Last season, we would reliably see something like below, which involved a wall of 4 deep around the goalkeeper, essentially forming a quasi-6-yard box, then the other group man-marking (there’s a few articles which going into our tactics a bit deeper, here, and here). This year we’re far likelier to see another image — Raya commanding, alone, in the 6-yard, with 2 front-edge (one primarily to stop front-post runners), 2 middle of the longer edge, and 1 deeper on the longer edge.
This typically forces teams wider for fear of the block/claim/Gabriel, and in general I see this as a much more preferable state for Arsenal. Headers become harder as attackers have a tighter space to ideally work in, with contact often from further out, and with deliverers also acutely aware of the counter threat that exists with Raya now. All of this is underlined by the general aim of ‘scoring’, creating a bitch of a headache for set-piece designers not blessed with JWP. This last point is something Arsenal actually showed vs LFC whilst on the attack, aiming to avoid the Alisson claim-and-counter at all costs by aiming near post — ensuring either a goal kick, a goal, or a clearance to the taker again (that and more game-model analysis in the thread below — I’m aware how shameless this is).
Inswingers too now focus on either very short or very long deliveries to skip the mid-box and try desperately to avoid Dave Ray’s eager paws. Palace is an easy example of this, where Palace spend their first 6 corners deciding where to go, before eventually sneaking one just over Raya.
…And this is where we touch on my slight misgivings about Raya, and lead onto some of the problems Arsenal have been having with this over the season.
Part 3 — Growing into the gloves
This section is a bit of a prelude to something I’m working on for the next week or so, looking at this across Man Utd, Brentford, and Spurs in comparison to Arsenal, so this isn’t the full argument, but will do for this discussion hopefully.
As you might expect when there is such a drastic change in a core component, Arsenal have at points struggled to adapt to this new presence between the posts. Facing this new style of delivery most weeks will highlight some different issues in the structure that “hey everyone jump on Aaron” wouldn’t, and this is perhaps why Arsenal have been shipping set-piece goals at such a high rate, despite what I described as a preferable state. Tifo cover this pretty well in their video regarding the ‘penalty spot’ which describes how Arsenal are fairly vulnerable around this spot on outswingers, due to the placement of balls between Raya’s comfortable claiming range and easy pickings for Gabriel et al, and on watching this was definitely an issue.
I talked about this a bit on the Potshot podcast, but I consistently found Gabriel to be fairly wasted in this structure, as we perhaps underrated Raya’s commitment to claims — in that Gabriel is often too deep, or too stuck to the 6-yard line, and struggles to compete well for those corners to that zone. This is doubly important as typically our man-markers here are the smaller lads: Zinchenko, Saka, Ødegaard, plus Rice who struggles with these high balls. All of this combines in a horrible cocktail that leads to Arsenal conceding 8.62% of corners faced, as of Jan 25 2024 per The Analyst, despite only allowing a shot 32.76% of the time. This makes sense that there is an excellent preventative ethos, but if this is not airtight, it is gifting goals.
In recent weeks there’s been movements to correct this, with Gab starting higher, and vs LFC and Fulham A Kai was also utilised on man-marking duty to offset the height differential centrally, rather than the standard front-post — but this seems to have come back against LFC H. This still reflects a changing relationship with the structure with Raya, and suggests this flow of corner goals will be fairly stemmed sooner rather than later; contrast to Ramsdale, where the influx of corners conceded in the latter half of the season feels more like inevitability than bad luck in hindsight.
Arsenal aren’t the only team to suffer from this, as I’m getting to in the near future (I hope), and in fact the impact has been arguably lessened by being so brutal with Ramsdale, before attitudes and behaviours in defence can be deep-set — you can see glimpses of it with Turner in net compared to Ramsdale before, so it’s perhaps not surprising that a full-scale change has resulted in some ripples, but thankfully the seas seem to be calming with these small but consequential changes.
Closing arguments
Arteta, as I’m sure you will have heard by now, is building a team that’s looking to dominate in every single phase of play. It’s likely no surprise to see us moving from a GK who doesn’t seem confident to do this, to arguably one of the most dominant in world football, from an aerial and set-play perspective. Not only does Raya ideally prevent the ‘typical Arsenal’ goals, of getting stunted by the tall CBs from a set-play and all-around bullied, he also turns these situations into opportunities for progression. If you have a 98th percentile aerial claimer, with one of the best defensive headerers in the league in front of him, there’s no better way to even further lessen the oppositions attacking opportunity than to pose a lethal counter threat — see Liverpool forcing us to drop Rice deep in our game at Anfield, to cover Salah.
Is Raya likely to make the wonder saves Alisson does, that De Gea and Ramsdale did? Probably not. But is he making sure we’re best placed so he doesn’t have to? I’d scream a resounding yes.