Claims that Arsenal are routinely wasting time during matches are not supported by the available data, particularly when examining how quickly goalkeeper David Raya restarts play.
Figures for the 2025-26 Premier League season show David Raya releases the ball on average in 3.96 seconds after making a catch or claim.
That places him among the quicker goalkeepers in the division, with 15 keepers taking longer to get the ball back in to play
At the opposite end of the scale are Senne Lammens of Manchester United, who averages 7.68 seconds, Bart Verbruggen of Brighton at 6.52 seconds (which will be surprising news to Fabian Huzeler) and Jordan Pickford of Everton at 6.5 seconds. A further group of goalkeepers including Dean Henderson, Robin Roefs, Emiliano Martinez, Alphonse Areola and Matz Sels all average between roughly five and six seconds.
Raya’s figure is also faster than Gianluigi Donnarumma of Manchester City, Bernd Leno of Fulham, Martin Dubravka of West Ham, Guglielmo Vicario of Tottenham, Caoimhin Kelleher of Brentford, Karl Darlow of Leeds, Alisson Becker of Liverpool, Robert Sanchez of Chelsea and Jose Sa of Wolves.
Only Djorde Petrovic of Bournemouth and Nick Pope of Newcastle restart play more quickly on average and that’s by 0.63 and 0.54 of a second.
Those numbers challenge the suggestion that Arsenal are systematically delaying restarts from the back, as do the number of opposition players who try to obstruct Raya to stop Arsenal breaking because, despite what their managers would have you believe, they are well aware that they are lying when they talk about how long Arsenal take to do things (corners excluded).
Raya brought up 100 appearances for Arsenal in the game against Brighton. The 30-year-old, who is up for Save of the Month, has kept 43 cleansheets in that time, a truly remarkable stat.