- cross-posted to:
- gunners@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- gunners@lemmit.online
Raya hasn’t received that much love from the fans because he displaced fan favorite Ramsdale despite being better on nearly every metric. Even if you don’t compare them, Raya still deserves love from the fans for his great performances
Forget Ramsdale and any fan loyalty for a minute.
Raya has shown repeatedly that his positioning from crossing is suspect, and has had two huge lapses in his passing vs city and Chelsea, giving the ball away in the penalty area directly to an attacker.
His stats might be better but he is having worrying moments on the eye test that should be cause for concern.
The worst thing is that he is clearly the number 1 and no matter how many errors he makes this won’t change, and when a player will always play despite this - this isn’t good.
People downvoting you, but completely unable to counter the points you’ve made.
I’ll counter it right here. Raya has played like 20x more passes per game than Ramsdale averages, and is playing riskier with the ball than Ramsdale ever did. These moments will happen as Raya invites the press to open space.
If you’ve ever watched Man City over the last decade or Liverpool with Allison you will see these moments happen multiple times each season. It comes with the territory.
His long distribution is also like 10x better than Ramsdales
This isn’t necessarily a good thing. From where I sit, it very much seems like Raya has trouble playing a pass into areas that allow defenders to progress, or breaking the press line and getting the ball to midfield. The increased number of passes seem to be from playing Saliba and Gabriel into trouble and needing extra attempts to get out of trouble.
Do we notice any significant improvement to make this risk worth it? We’re player much poorer than we did last season, I don’t think anyone would deny. I appreciate that on paper a keeper taking more risks might achieve better results, but we aren’t actually seeing those results yet.
Again, the theory is there, but is it happening In practice with Raya? The entire point of the post you were supposed to be counting is that the stats are redundant because Raya isn’t passing the eye test at all yet.
Ten times better? Hmmm. This narrative seems to come from the final minutes of the game against City where he pinged a few long ones against a defence we’d already mentally broken. Ramsdale had good long ball distribution, so this feels a bit revisionist. Perhaps Raya does edge him on this one, but claiming 10x is really silly and harms any argument you want to make.
Raya has broken the press tons of times. And when you invite the press, it will always look far riskier than passing it instantly or hoofing it long.
We haven’t clicked offensively yet mainly because we are playing with a striker at LCM.
If we had a real midfielder there, Rice or a new signing, we would look far better
Really great counter point and really loved that you provided a source for your statistics!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/s/rHqH6bjs8J
You understand that his making mistakes due to Areta asking him to play like this. Therfor in his eyes it’s a good sign. Especially if he makes a mistake and is willing to continue.
I understand your point here but Ramsdale was incredibly poor on crosses and was leading the league last year in possession lost leading to a shot on goal.
The top comment in that thread:
“High risk high reward system with one of the youngest starting GKs in the top 5 leagues. He’ll be okay.”
We need to accept that these risks are part and parcel of the system.
I was trying to stay clear of the direct comparisons between the two, because of course Ramsdale has been caught out as well.
Raya is 3 years more experienced than Ramsdale, has worked with our keeping coaches before and has been wanted by Arteta for years - and he’s still making these mistakes in high profile games. I think that’s why for me there’s I’m scrutinising these more.
Also (side note) for me it’s strange that Ramsdale’s kicking seemed to be really good at the start and has gotten more suspect as times gone on.