Mikel Arteta has admitted he expected a backlash in England for his decision to drop Aaron Ramsdale for David Raya as the Spanish goalkeeper prepares to make his 100th appearance for Arsenal.
Ramsdale joined Arsenal in 2021 and impressed — winning the Goalkeeper of the Year at the London Football Awards two years later — but was still replaced by Raya, initially on loan from Brentford in 2023 before making the move permanent a year later.
Ramsdale then left Arsenal for Southampton while Raya has gone on to establish himself as one of the Premier League’s top goalkeepers, registering 41 clean sheets from 99 games and winning the division’s Golden Glove in successive seasons, sharing last season’s award with Nottingham Forest’s Matz Sels.
“[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.”
Raya’s superior ability to play out from the back was seen as a key characteristic but the Spaniard had survive a difficult period in which many Arsenal fans expressed their nervousness at his distribution in those formative days at Emirates Stadium.
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“I knew that he had the courage first of all to deal with that situation because it’s not easy when you come to a bigger club and for him it was a step up,” Arteta added.
“We believed that he was the right keeper as well to give us something else as a team as well.”
