David Raya

Onto the team and the plans for GW9.

The team is Raya in goal.

In defence, Mendy, Chou and Van Hecke.

In midfield, we've got Gross and Bumo, Palmer, Rodgers, Sharda and up front, Barry and Haaland.

Then it's game week 11.

So on that basis, if I hold, then I'm looking at the team and which positions actually need a transfer.

Like Raya doesn't, Van Hek, no. Mendy, no.

Assuming he's fine.

And so I sat down in front of my phone about, it must've been about 7, 7.30 PM before the ceremony itself started and had a right old rant and moan and complain about, where three of our players had finished.

Now, a lot of people sort of responded to that video saying, why aren't you complaining about David Raya not winning the Yashin trophy? We'll get into that in a minute.

But at the time, I didn't know that David Raya wasn't going to win that.

He was among the contenders.

He was at the ceremony.

It is a kind of double narrative.

It is a narrative that makes very little sense to me.

Let's move on to talk about another Arsenal individual, and I'm talking David Raya here.

Let's break it past William Saliba.

Look at David Raya.

This is three back-to-back Golden Glove winner David Raya in terms of just winning the Premier League.

And we're on course now to being potential favorites for the Champions League and back-to-back EPL favorites.

And probably four-time Golden Glove winner.

in that regard.

What, with David Ryan? Yeah.

I wouldn't be overly concerned, but like, for example, if you look at the Mateus Cunha goal last season, you know, a long shot, which you could argue, well, David Raya, again, there goes another shot in which he, you know, he's beaten by outside the box.

Bruno Fernandes won the player of the year ahead of Declan Rice and Saliba, which I didn't agree with.

Even David Raya, though I also admit he was probably a worthy candidate.

But I just think the others...

My point is, I do think as Arsenal fans, it's like...

And that's the only reason.

In my opinion, we literally have three players.

For me, definitely David Raya.

Definitely Declan Rice.

But because people have this, again, he had to follow on from David Rea.

nobody was ever going to be as good as david raya but

flecken just straight up refused to to do his job at times at times he

definitely did

But if the other Arsenal defensive assets are falling like flies, like if we don't know which right back is going to be playing every single week, whether it's White or Timber, you can't pick either of them because they'll rotate.

If Calafiori's minutes are getting managed and maybe Hincapié or Luis Skelly plays there every other week, and then the other centre-back is Saliba, who's got very little upside, we're kind of just limited to Raya and Gabriel as the defensive picks that you can actually trust.

Maybe he does become worth it if those other premium options aren't putting up the numbers.

So one to keep an eye on for now.

His DEFCON is good, his underlying attacking data is good, and he's in the best defense in the league.

And he might, in a few game weeks time, be one of the only viable defenders that you can pick in that defence.

Aside from Raya, of course, who's got very limited upside.

I can see him getting a lot more popular quite quickly.

But starting with goalkeeper, there's really only a few to pick from, I think, in this like template discussion.

And number one is David Raya.

He's owned by about 46% of teams at the time of recording.

Verbruggen is number two on this list.

So I'm not actually going to make any arguments against the goalkeeper template picks, to be completely honest.

Let's review the data here.

We've got David Raya as the template pick, and I think he's a template pick for good reason.

He's putting up great underlying data.

I mean, MLS should not count.

the best players it's not even a top 10 league in the world um so anyway uh there was uh una simone won the golden glove i've seen that that's an absolute disgrace 54 goals conceded in la liga but him having seven good games for spain in the world cup he wins it somehow put david raya in there who only conceded 26 goals in the premier league last season or 29 In a far, far superior league, if he was in goals, Spain would have done the same thing.

Honestly, I said this to you before we jumped on, but I still can't comprehend in my pea brain that I have, because it's like the size of literally an acorn or a pea, that from 2018, the best player, heads and shoulders above everyone else, Killian Mbappe has one Ballon d'Or.

I just don't understand.

He should be goalkeeper of the year, completely ignoring his club last year he had this year.

David Raya was better than him in every facet of the game.

In fact, David Raya should be the starting goalkeeper for Spain for whatever fucking reason of hierarchy or whatever that he's not the starter.

And so, and then even if you want to use the world cup thing, David Ryan still a world cup winner because he was on the team.

So by that metric metric, I didn't understand.

And I think what you're seeing from this team, and just in general, is the depth.

The depth is really showing out.

And David Raya, phenomenal again.