Aaron Ramsdale remains popular with Arsenal coaches and players despite David Raya’s introduction, and the two goalkeepers are getting on well.
The Athletic report that despite David Raya becoming the clear first-choice goalkeeper at Arsenal, there’s no animosity between the Spanish goalkeeper and Aaron Ramsdale.
Mikel Arteta and goalkeeper coach Inaki Cana are happy with both players as “excellent” options, and the level of training has reportedly gone up as both goalkeepers push each other on.
The report adds that Ramsdale is popular at Arsenal and has received support from senior players in the squad, though the potential threat to his England spot may eventually provoke anxiety with Euro 2024 on the horizon.
Arsenal have plenty of games coming up in the next few months, not least because Ramsdale helped the Gunners to progress in the League Cup with a clean sheet against Brentford.
Ramsdale will surely play against West Ham in the next round of the cup on November 1st, but it remains to be seen how often he’s utilised outside of the cup competitions.
After Ramsdale’s contract extension earlier this year, it was somewhat surprising to see Mikel Arteta not only opting to sign a new goalkeeper, but also making that new keeper his number one.
Yet perhaps new stats from StatsBomb could help to explain the decision.
The stats company have been looking at Expected Pass stats, effectively creating a baseline for how often you’d expect a pass to be completed – based on the specific conditions of that pass.
They then compare a player’s Expected Passes Completed against their actual completion rate.
This helps to evaluate whether a passer is particularly strong or weak at passing compared to their peers, and compared to what’s expected given the risks they’re taking (or not, as the case may be).
Interestingly, Raya is outperforming Ramsdale at both the safer end of the scale, and also at the riskier end. Ramsdale reportedly outperforms Raya in the medium-risk range, but even then, Raya is performing above average compared to the rest of the league.
"Last season, Raya outperformed Ramsdale on both safe and risky passes. Ramsdale outperformed Raya in the medium-risk range, but Raya still performed above expectation there too"
StatsBomb Release New Models: Expected Pass (xPass) and Pass Clustering 🔽https://t.co/8y9O7oQWTH pic.twitter.com/oPzeDmIde0
— StatsBomb (@StatsBomb) October 6, 2023
If Raya is outperforming Ramsdale in some key areas, and still more than adequate in the remainder, then he’s probably a better choice when you’re playing out from the back.
It’s up to the former Sheffield United man to prove he can match his Arsenal counterpart in that regard.