David Raya had a fantastic Arsenal debut during Sunday’s Premier League win over Everton.
The Spaniard was handed a surprise start ahead of Aaron Ramsdale in goal and he made the best use of the opportunity with a calm and composed performance over 90 minutes at Goodison Park.
The former Brentford star was terrific with his distribution for the club. He completed 32 out of his 34 passes at Goodison Park. This included seven accurate long balls from an attempted nine.
Meanwhile, Raya also made three ball recoveries outside of his own box and made one crucial clearance. In our view, the 27-year-old could be Arsenal’s regular number one going forward.
Ramsdale has barely put a foot wrong during the early part of the season, and it is quite evident that Raya is more composed passing out from the back and can deliver accurate long balls.
In the first four league games this campaign, Ramsdale completed 18.5 passes with an accuracy of 77 per cent, but only managed 2.8 long balls with a success rate of 33 per cent.
This is an area where the €40 million-rated star needs to work upon or he could risk losing his starting role.
Arsenal will be back in Champions League action after a six-year wait on Wednesday night. They entertain PSV Eindhoven in their opening group stage game at the Emirates Stadium.
Arteta is likely to bring back Ramsdale in goal as he was crucial to qualifying for the competition, but the 25-year-old has no room for errors with Raya already displacing him in the league.
In his post-match presser on Sunday, Arteta talked about the possibility of substituting his goalkeeper within games, and we could see that happening at some point very soon.
Stats from Transfermarkt.com & Sofascore.com
