Barring injury, Ramsdale is gauranteed to start this game due to on-loan David Raya not being allowed to play against his parent club.
Now we have got the clickbait out of the way (sorry! I had to do it!), we do actually need to have a discussion around Raya and Ramsdale.
Against Chelsea, “there is only one Aaron Ramsdale” was sung by some of the away fans following Raya passing the ball directly to a Chelsea player. This was swiftly drowned out by the majority of the away section singing their backing of Mikel.
Raya does not yet have his own song, so chanting about Mikel was the way to show the majoirity of the fans backed both the new goalkeeper, and the managers decision to play him.
Some fans had it in for Raya before he even joined. They have not been willing to give him a chance due to Ramsdale being one of their favourite players.
It is not that they thought Ramsdale was a better keeper (although they will try and convince you this was the reason), it is because they liked Ramsdale’s character. And this leads them to be prejudice against Raya.
Some fans are almost sitting there waiting for Raya to make a mistake so that they can jump on it. So that they can scream “get Ramsdale on” or post pictures of the Englishman on social media, commenting “my keeper”.Their agenda is exposed as they refuse to praise Raya for anything, whilst going out of their way to criticise.
Against Chelsea, Nicolas Jackson went clean through. Raya kept his composure, did not lunge in, and ended up grabbing the ball off the Chelsea forwards toes. “Jackson messed that up” some Arsenal fans claimed, refusing to acknowledge Raya’s good goalkeeping.
Then when it came Mykhailo Mudryk’s scuffed cross, they went out of their way to highlight that Raya was at fault for the goal. He was not.
Much of goalkeeping is predicting what a keeper will do, this allows them to shift their weight and be that split second quicker in reacting. When a winger slices a cross, it will almost always catch the keeper out.
Most of the time, the sliced cross goes into Row Z. But every now and against it goes into the top corner making the keeper look silly. But the goalie did nothing wrong.
Seeing the criticicsm of Raya for conceding the 2nd Chelsea goal made me think about Arsenal legend David Seaman.
Old Safe Hands was a world class keeper, but also one who had an error in him. Nayim in 1995, Ronaldinho in 2002. It is actually quite sad that Seaman is often remembered for his howlers rather than the performances that led him to play over 1,000 times for club and country.
Anyway, the point is back in 1995, if social media was about, there would have been fans calling Seaman a liability and demanding we sign a new goalkeeper that summer – or start Vince Bartram.
Arsenal’s last truly world class keeper was Jens Lehmann. The German was also not immune to the odd error or 6. But he retained the backing of the Arsenal faithful due to being a crowd favourite. Being a character. I wonder if that would have changed had he made those errors in the social media era rather than prior to it.
Now I will not say Raya has had an exceptional start to his Arsenal career. He has looked shakey at times. But lets not pretend that Ramsdale has been in sparkling form.
When Ramsdale lost his place to Raya, he was ranked as the worst keeper in the Premier League based on expected goals prevented.
His shakey start was off the back of a poor finish to 2022/23, where he often conceded from the first shot he faced.Raya, meanwhile, conceded 6 goals less than he “should” have, with only Bernd Leno and AlissoThe metrics show that last season Ramsdale conceded 1 more goal than he “should” have, which highlights that whilst he was excellent, he also had periods where he would have a drop off in form.n bettering him.
Now Raya’s critics will disregard the stats and tell you that “my eyes tell me something different”, but that is why statistics are much better than an opinion.
Opinions are influenced by your agenda. You often see what you want to see. They are subjective. Stats are objective. They remove individual bias.
Yes, Raya has made errors, but Ramsdale was not infallible.
The blunder against Fulham earlier this season, the mistake against Southampton at the back end of last season. The narrative spun by many seems to indicate that Ramsdale was a giant in goal. A reliable keeper who never made an error. He was far from it.
Some fans are even saying “playing Raya will be Arteta’s downfall” and “Arteta’s decision making will split the fans”. No. It is not Arteta’s decision making that will split the fans. It is those fans who feed off negativity that will try and create the divisions. Those grew from the WOB v AKB debate. They want to make it Raya v Ramsdale, rather than supporting the team, backing the players.
My final thoughts come from Arsenal legends George Graham and Thierry Henry.
In the early 90s, Graham sold fans favourite John Lukic and recruited Seaman. Graham thought that whilst Lukic was one of the best keepers in England, Seaman was the best. Like now, some fans were up in arms at the decision. Graham was proved right.
There was also a great interview from Henry where he discussed that Arteta bought Ramsdale to take us from 8th to top 4, and the manager thinks Raya could be the man to take us from contenders to Champions. Similar to when Pep Guardiola dumped Claudio Bravo after a single season, replacing him with Ederson.
Ramsdale will get a run-out in the League Cup against West Ham. He will also play against Brentford. I will be at both games back the man inbetween the posts. Just like I will be at Sheffield United tomorrow backing Raya who will be the keeper of the day.
Instead of looking to jump on every Raya mistake, why not try backing the player? Stop with your agendas and support the team.
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