Glove Butler
How supporters feel about positions of priority in the transfer market is very heavily governed by the season that has immediately passed. It is entirely understandable and logical that the attack and the creative areas of the team occupy most of our thinking as Arsenal fans at the moment. It is the area where injuries hurt the team the most last season and, even with a clean bill of health, it is the area most in need of first eleven quality talent.
Long-term injury to Gabriel Jesus, the failure of Raheem Sterling’s loan spell, as well as the exits of Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe, Reiss Nelson and Fabio Vieira brought the area into even sharper focus last year. Ultimately, the Gunners started a Champions League knockout tie with a front three of Sterling, Tierney and Merino (albeit when they had a 7-1 first leg buffer).
Our anxieties about other potential areas of weakness will be dictated by availability during the preceding campaign. Arsenal had a lot of bad injury luck (though there is, of course, an argument that overplaying certain players may have contributed too) but if they got lucky in one area, it was in goal. David Raya was available for every single game but there were only three he did not participate in.
At home to Bolton in the League Cup, 16-year-old Jack Porter (whose name scans unbelievably well with System of a Down’s 2002 hit ‘Toxicity’) started. For the fourth round of the competition, Arsenal were able to upgrade from a goalkeeper who has just taken his GCSEs to a goalkeeper that had just taken his A-Levels in Tommy Setford.
Loan signing from Bournemouth Neto played in the Champions League dead rubber against Girona and after trying to palm away a shot a good 25 yards from his neto, Arteta decided that was quite enough of him for the season. That Raya stayed fit and available was an oasis of good fortune in the desert of 2024-25. Not only did Raya escape the injury gods, but he also escaped the wrath of the PGMOL.
That he managed to avoid becoming the first goalkeeper in Premier League history to be sent off for chewing gum was a minor miracle, given the assorted officiating mishaps Arsenal suffered last season. Elite clubs tend to go through ‘cycles’ when it comes to back up goalkeepers given the volatility of the position.
Liverpool have just lost the league’s best back up goalkeeper in Caoimhín Kelleher, who is too good to sit on the bench and has signed for Brentford. Prior to Kelleher, Liverpool’s back up goalkeeper was the post-prime version of Adrian, who was a significant step down from both Kelleher and Alisson.
If you have a good back up goalkeeper, you don’t tend to have them for very long. Much as they did in the Invincibles season when Stuart Taylor’s injury meant Graham Stack was Jens Lehmann’s redundant back-up, Arsenal got away with a sub-par back up last season.
In 2023-24, they had Ramsdale as the reluctant bench fodder, whose track record reassured us even if he actually proved to be quite poor in his rare outings during that season. It’s a difficult position to show your best form in when you can’t string a run of games together and Ramsdale’s form was clearly exacerbated by a loss of confidence after a very public demotion.
In 2022-23 the back up was Matt Turner, who probably fits into the ‘Neto and some children’ grade of fall back options (sorry Matt). In 2021-22, it was Bernd Leno fulfilling the ‘reluctant back up’ role fulfilled by Ramsdale two seasons hence. The German was cast in the ‘clapping and pretending to smile when the other nominee wins the Oscar’ role.
I am not going to spin out this conceit any further by going into whatever the fuck was going on when Runar Runarsson was Leno’s glove butler. While back-up goalkeeper is not the most important, or most eye catching, piece of business Arsenal have to do this summer, I think it is still very important.
Firstly, it is easy to be inured to the importance of a deputy ‘keeper when they are only involved in Carabao Cup kickabouts against EFL reserve teams or Champions League dead rubbers. But if Raya were to be injured for two, three, even six months, it soon becomes an incredibly important position. Alisson missed 10 Premier League games through injury for Liverpool last season and it proved to be no issue at all thanks to the quality of Kelleher.
While Richard Wright and Stuart Taylor did not prove to be serious competition for David Seaman in 2001-02, they both played sufficient games to qualify for a Premier League winners’ medal. However, I think Raya’s contribution as a pseudo outfield player means that he would leave a serious vacancy in case of medium to long-term absence.
I almost look at him as a sort of reverse target man. The benefit of a big striker like Havertz is that he gives you the option to go over the top of the press and relieve pressure. I think Raya does something very similar around the opposite penalty area. He is very adept at leaving the width of his posts to provide an outlet for defenders who might be pressed up against the touchline.
The variety he shows in both short and long distribution is difficult to replicate. It is easy to see why Arsenal seriously thought about spending relatively big money on more of an analogue in Joan Garcia. I understand and even endorse Arsenal’s decision not to potentially restrict their attacking budget by paying the asking price- but not doing so still represents a gamble that could backfire.
Raya is important to the way that Arsenal play and what they are able to do in build-up. Finding a back-up with a similar skillset, even if they are not as accomplished as Raya, is going to be very difficult. Arteta has his ‘Gabriel’ in goal and finding a ‘Kiwior’ is not going to be straight forward.
If this season has taught us anything, it is that injury luck rarely holds for more than a season. In 2023-24, Arsenal had relatively good fortune with injuries and they paid a severe tariff for that in 2024-25. Raya is going to get injured at some point and making sure the drop off, both in style as well as quality, is not Arsenal’s most important task this summer, but it might be the most difficult.
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