Barely two months after signing a new-and-improved Arsenal contract to ostensibly cement his place as Mikel Arteta's number one, Aaron Ramsdale's previously untouchable status in the Gunners XI could soon come under serious threat.
Indeed, Arsenal are now reported to be weighing up a move for Brentford and Spain shot-stopper David Raya, who also attracted interest from Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur before the two clubs sought alternative options.
Bees head coach Thomas Frank has stated that Raya will be allowed to move on for the right price, and the former Blackburn Rovers man is known to be pining for an exit from the Gtech Community Stadium in order to fulfil his continental aspirations.
Bayern Munich are seemingly the only other suitor standing in Arsenal's way of agreeing a deal for Raya, but the German champions are thought to have already had a loan offer rebuffed, and the goalkeeper himself would allegedly rather contribute to the Arsenal cause than head to Bavaria.
Whether Arsenal are willing to cough up Brentford's £40m asking price for a player in the final year of his contract remains to be seen, although the Gunners did make Declan Rice - who would have also become a free agent in 2024 - the most expensive British player of all time just a couple of weeks ago.
Fringe players - including current number two and Nottingham Forest-linked Matt Turner - will surely have to be given the boot before Arsenal can accelerate their efforts to sign Raya, who will certainly not arrive in North London content with playing second fiddle to Ramsdale.
As debate rages over which keeper is the superior keeper, Sports Mole takes a closer look at how Raya and Ramsdale compare, using FBref statistics from the 2022-23 Premier League campaign.
Goalkeeping
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With both Raya and Ramsdale playing every minute of their side's successful Premier League campaigns last season, the pair start on a level playing field, and the Arsenal man unsurprisingly edges the generic goalkeeping statistics.
As Arsenal challenged for title glory while Brentford tried and failed to book a European adventure, Ramsdale ended the campaign with 14 clean sheets to his name, the joint-second highest in the league and only behind Golden Glove winner David de Gea.
However, Raya is not all that far behind with 12 top-flight shut-outs - putting him fifth on the overall list - and the Spaniard saw 46 goals fly past him last season, while Ramsdale let 43 strikes sail through into the back of his own net.
Barring the Gunners' end-of-season capitulation during William Saliba's absence, Arteta's backline had much less to do compared to Frank's, and it comes as little surprise to learn that Raya faced 197 efforts on his goal - more than any other goalkeeper in the Premier League - as Ramsdale's numbers came in at 136.
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Nevertheless, Raya's shot-stopping abilities were never called into question last season, as the Spaniard remarkably kept out 154 of the efforts he faced - yet another Premier League high - as is his save percentage of 77.7%, just above second-placed Bernd Leno's 77.1%.
Meanwhile, Ramsdale saved 94 of the 136 shots on his goal for a slightly worse percentage of 70.6%, which actually sees the England international rank outside the top 10 in the Premier League for that column, behind the likes of De Gea, Alisson Becker, Jordan Pickford, Emiliano Martinez and Kepa Arrizabalaga.
Neither goalkeeper made a penalty save last season, though, with Raya letting in the two spot-kicks against and Ramsdale shipping three from five attempts - the two outliers being fluffed efforts from Patrick Bamford and Mohamed Salah - but the Arsenal man also made two errors directly leading to a goal compared to one for Raya.
When it comes to defending crosses, meanwhile, Raya fared slightly better in that regard, catching 52 of the 598 balls floated into the Brentford box to finish with a ratio of 8.7%, the second highest in the league behind Martinez's 12.5%. In contrast, Ramsdale successfully stopped 22 from 381 crosses for 5.8%, despite the fact that the 25-year-old is two inches taller than his 6ft counterpart.
Footwork
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A necessity for the modern-day goalkeeper, both Ramsdale and Raya have often proven adept with the ball at their feet, hence why the latter was considered by Man United boss Erik ten Hag for his playing out from the back system.
The former Blackburn man ended the 2022-23 season having attempted 1640 passes in total - by far the most of any goalkeeper in the Premier League - and 1054 of those efforts came off, seeing him post an overall record of 64.3%.
However, 761 of Ramsdale's 1111 passes were successful, seeing the Arsenal man edge the overall completion statistic with 68.5%, although that percentage must certainly be taken with a pinch of salt given that the England shot-stopper attempted over 500 fewer passes.
Both Ramsdale and Raya rank very highly in the short and medium pass completion category, and while the Brentford man edges the former category by a hair - 97% compared to Ramsdale's 96.9% - the Arsenal number one's medium success rate of 98.2% is superior to Raya's 97.9%.
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Then again, Raya's long-range distribution dwarfs many of his Premier League colleagues, and he completed a whopping 459 long passes last term compared to a mere 186 for Ramsdale, ending with a 44.7% success rate to beat his counterpart's 35.8%.
In fact, Raya's 459 completed long passes was higher than any other player in the English top flight last season - Pickford is his closest challenger at 342 - while Ramsdale's return actually puts him in the bottom three goalkeepers to have played at least 15 games last season.
Another column topped by Raya is the launched pass category, as the Spain international completed 347 such attempts compared with Ramsdale's 109, while 70.3% of the Brentford man's goal kicks were launched; Ramsdale came in at 59.5%.
Whether Raya and Ramsdale boast the "sweeper-keeper" label is up to one's interpretation, but the Spaniard also averaged 1.42 defensive actions outside of his penalty area per 90 minutes last term, in comparison to the Arsenal man's 1.13.
Verdict
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These days, not even the fanciful signing of Kylian Mbappe or Erling Haaland could appease every Arsenal supporter, with there sure to be a small section of fans ready to nit-pick any underwhelming detail of a new player.
Back in 2021, the arrival of Ramsdale was no exception, but the Englishman's acquisition from Sheffield United was incredibly badly-received - so much so that the negative reaction to his arrival on social media was a talking point on Arsenal's All or Nothing documentary.
The glass-half-empty Gooners pointed to his successive relegations with Sheffield United and Bournemouth, but Ramsdale quickly won over a large portion of the Emirates faithful with his acrobatic excellence, neat distribution and fearless attitude on the pitch.
However, while the 25-year-old is capable of pulling off the most breathtaking saves - Salah and Ibrahima Konate at Anfield last season immediately spring to mind - he still possesses a tendency to ship goals that he would have been expected to keep out, as evidenced in pre-season when he allowed a long-range Bruno Fernandes strike to slip through his grasp.
Raya is by no means faultless either - no goalkeeper or indeed elite athlete is - but the Spaniard demonstrated his shot-stopping prowess and exemplary distribution in equal measure last season, and there is no doubt that the 27-year-old deserves to strut his stuff under the bright lights of the Champions League.
If Arsenal were to appease Brentford financially, Raya's Emirates unveiling ought to take little to no time at all, and such intense competition for the gloves will provide Arteta with another ideal selection headache, assuming that the Spaniard's possible signing forces Ramsdale to elevate his game to new heights.
Ben Knapton
