Arsenal might not have needed David Raya at the start of the summer ... but they really wanted him. Come the end of the season they may well conclude that the Spain international goalkeeper was worth the three-year wait to get him through the door, temporarily at first but in all likelihood permanently.
The Gunners have picked up Raya from Brentford on an initial loan deal with a purchase option that all parties see as a near formality. Paying next summer gives technical director Edu and his recruitment team a little more wiggle room both in terms of Arsenal's FFP obligations and should they want to squeeze in one more player after making the sales that are their top priority with just over a fortnight left in the transfer window.
The revelation late last month that Arsenal had expressed an interest in the Brentford goalkeeper came as something of a bolt from the blue. Having signed their three primary targets in time for their preseason tour of the USA, the expectation had been that manager Mikel Arteta and Edu would attempt to source another forward, ideally one who could cover for Bukayo Saka, and that would be it. If a goalkeeper were to arrive, it was expected to be a smash-glass-in-case-of-emergency veteran who would sit behind Aaron Ramsdale and Matt Turner on the depth chart, proving their value as a diligent presence in training in the same way that the likes of Scott Carson is for Manchester City.
However doubts hovered over Turner, who has proven to be an exceptional shot stopper with the USMNT but struggles with the ball at his feet. Arteta had been prepared to give him minutes in the Europa League, though even then not when the knockout matches rolled around, but few thought the 29 year old would get Champions League opportunities. Sources close to the club would counsel that the Raya signing is as much about Arsenal's assessment of their previous number two as it is anything to do with Ramsdale. Turner, for his part, knew after talks with the hierarchy at the end of last season that his opportunities would be limited.
"I wanted to go and play and find places to play," he said after making his Premier League debut with Nottingham Forest at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, "but at the end of last season when I brought that up it very much seemed like it wasn't on the cards from conversations with the front office, staff members."
As August approached Arsenal could not help but notice that Raya remained on the market. Having made clear before the end of last season that he was ready to move on from Brentford, whose contract with him expires in June 2024, the 27-year-old had been expected to be off the board by this stage of the summer. Chelsea and Tottenham were both expected to target Raya, the former in particular had personal terms lined up for the goalkeeper but were unable to push the Bees down on their £40 million price tag. Conscious that in a year's time, Ivan Toney will be in the same situation, Brentford would not want to be seen as a club that will simply take whatever they can get when one of their best players is in the final 12 months of his contract.
Hunting for a rival to Manuel Neuer, Bayern Munich entered the fray, offering a season-long loan deal which would have necessitated Raya extending his contract at the Gtech Community Stadium. This initial proposal was rejected by the Brentford hierarchy. It was at that moment Arsenal pounced. Once they entered the fray, CBS Sports soon revealed that the Gunners were the club the Spain international wanted most of all. As that became apparent, the Bundesliga champions -- who had already lost out to Edu in their pursuit of Jurrien Timber and Declan Rice this summer -- bowed out, strengthening Arsenal's negotiating hand.
Ultimately Arsenal have been able to conclude a deal that changed significantly at the one yard line. What had been expected to be a permanent transfer worth around £30 million transformed into a loan deal with a £3 million fee and a £27 million option. Notably that deal has necessitated Raya signing a new two year contract at Brentford with the option for a further 12 months, something he was not inclined to do when Bayern Munich came calling. The contract is merely what director of football Phil Giles termed "a fall-back position in the event that the transfer is not made permanent" but it shows how eager Raya was to get to north London. He leaves the Gtech Community Stadium, likely for good, to ringing endorsements from the club.
"I'm not expecting to see David back at Brentford, although if ever that happened then of course the opportunity to work with such a high-class goalkeeper for up to two more years would in many ways be an unexpected bonus for us," said Giles. "David has been a magnificent goalkeeper for us. He thoroughly deserves his move to a Champions League club and the next step in his career. In our view he is one of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League and will show himself to be one of the best in the world in the next few seasons.
"On top of that, he is a fantastic human being, and his conduct around the training ground these last few weeks has been, given the uncertainty around his future, absolutely exemplary. We wish him nothing but good luck."
Why was Raya so tempted by Arsenal? After all the pitch was not all that different from Bayern's and the new man is traveling from west London to north knowing that there is an established and popular No.1 who he must take the shirt from, even if Ramsdale does not have quite the pedigree as Neuer. The obvious answer is that Arsenal have a goalkeeper coach in Iñaki Caña who has worked with Raya before at Brentford. Sources close to negotiations, however, would suggest that this deal was about far more than resuming a professional relationship that lasted a little over five months before Caña joined Arteta's staff at Arsenal.
The first factor mentioned by those sources is not the coaches but the project, the chance not just to compete in the Champions League but to restore silverware for a club who have pulled themselves out of the morass in a few years. It has become something of a cliche to talk about Arteta's influence in negotiations but his sway is notable. In his pitch to Raya, the Arsenal manager offered a simple, precise assessment of the goalkeeper's qualities before explaining how his addition would take the team up another level.
There was no reason for Raya to doubt the sincerity of that view. After all, Arsenal had first attempted to sign him in the summer of 2020, when multiple seven-figure offers had been knocked back. Brentford were prepared to offer a concession to their No.1 however, a new contract that included an exit clause that would be activated if they failed to secure promotion. When Thomas Frank's side did in fact reach the promised land of the Premier League, Arsenal soon concluded that they would not be able to extricate Raya, settling on Ramsdale instead but leaving the Spaniard in no doubt that he still had a legion of admirers, including Caña, at the Emirates Stadium.
Two years later, they have their man. It will take shrewd man management from Arteta to keep both happy but Ramsdale's performance in front of a watching Raya at Wembley on Sunday made clear that he was up for the fight. He could well face one because the Brentford man arguably outperformed him over the last 12 months. When Frank described him as one of the top four goalkeepers in the Premier League, it was easy to see how he had reached that conclusion.
According to Twenty3's expected goals (xG) metric for last season, Raya prevented the third most goals of any Premier League goalkeeper in 2022-23, conceding 11.3 goals fewer than the post-shot xG value of the shots he faced. There are, in particular, an awful lot of saves in the graphic above that point to the Spain international springing down quickly to his right. By way of comparison, Ramsdale conceded 0.27 goals more. It should of course be noted that goalkeeper shot data can have its foibles but anyone who followed the English game last year would agree that the Brentford man looked the more convincing between his posts.
Still, if Arsenal wanted an elite shot stopper first and foremost then Turner would not have headed to Nottingham Forest. What they are getting with Raya is another goalkeeper who, like Ramsdale, radiates composure with the ball at his feet. Not for nothing did Brentford technical director Lee Dykes joke earlier in the summer that Raya was worth £40 million because buying clubs would be getting a number 10 for their money as well. No goalkeeper completed more long passes last season, his 410 vastly eclipsing the 294 of second-placed Jordan Pickford. Playing in a team that has Toney in it helps significantly but the quality of his distribution would still be exceptional without him even if the success rate would doubtless trickle downwards.
There is plenty more to add into the mix too. Raya is extremely confident under the high ball, stopping 8.3 percent of crosses last season (one of the highest tallies in Europe's top five leagues) while making more high claims than any Premier League keeper bar Emiliano Martinez. He beats Ramsdale in both of those categories, as he does for sweeper keeper regains too.
In other words, if Arsenal had approached the summer market with the intention of upgrading on their No. 1, the balance of probability suggests they would have done so by signing Raya. Of course, being at a title contender will bring with it different challenges for the new man, who is going to have to familiarize himself with games where the ball might not enter his half for minutes on end, but the Gunners have got themselves an extremely impressive new recruit.
