"[His record is] unbelievable," Arteta said. "And I was hammered when I brought him. So that's perspective as well. Very good to understand the game, and especially when a few months or years go by. It's really good to look back as well and reflect on that. I was very conscious about it, I was very clear that that [backlash] was going to happen."
"I know this country and I knew what I was doing. I understood the context. If it had been a player from Serbia it would have been a different conversation for sure. It was someone who was as well very much loved, a special character and an English international. That had a lot of ingredients to become a big debate."
Mikel Arteta expected a backlash after dropping Aaron Ramsdale in favour of David Raya and framed that reaction as predictable given Ramsdale's English status and popularity. Aaron Ramsdale joined Arsenal in 2021, won Goalkeeper of the Year at the London Football Awards, and later moved to Southampton. David Raya arrived initially on loan from Brentford in 2023 and made the transfer permanent a year later. Raya has recorded 41 clean sheets from 99 games and won the Premier League Golden Glove in successive seasons, sharing last season's award with Nottingham Forest's Matz Sels. Raya's ability to play out from the back and subsequent form justified the selection despite early fan nervousness about his distribution.
Read at ESPN.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]