Arteta right to strick with Raya as number one

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Against Luton, David Raya made a couple of errors that led to their goals. This reopened the debate on the goal keepers again and, despite being top of the league, Sky Sports predictable jumped all over it.

Firstly, Sky Sports show week after week that they are unable to Arsenal being back, and will take any opportunity to paint us in a bad light, try and spread negativity and derail us. And that is what they do in this piece.

The morning after we go top of the league, they dedicate more than 3 minutes of airtime to our goalkeeping situation. The opening of the segment resolved that debate within 30 seconds. The fact they then continued to debate for 3 minutes longer shows they are going out of their way to try and destroy us.

Let’s start by looking at those statistics in full:

Raya has more clean sheets than Ramsdale, but has played more games. So lets turn that into a percentage:

Clean sheets
Raya: Kept a clean sheet 46.6% of games this season
Ramsdale: Kept a clean sheet 46.6% of games this season
Raya leads 1 round to 0

Goals conceded
Raya: 13 goals conceded at 0.9 per game
Ramsdale: 8 goals conceded at 1 per game
Raya leads 2-0

Save percentage
Raya: 65.8% of shots saved
Ramsdale: 61.9% of shots saved
Raya leads 3-0

Pass accuaracy
Raya: 74.3% passes complete
Ramsdale: 65% passes complete
Raya leads 4-0

Errors leading to goals
Raya: 3 errors
Ramsdale: 0 errors
Raya leads 4-1

xG prevented
Raya: -0.8 behind par
Ramsdale: 2.01 behind par
Raya leads 5-1

So of the 6 key statistics Sky Sports presented, Raya leads in 5 of them. So why the need for a 3-minute long debate?

The stats above prove what I have long said about Aaron Ramsdale.

Ramsdale does not make too many glaring errors that lead to goals – although as Theirry Henry pointed out, he has been saved this season by his team mates quick thinking. But he also lets in a lot of goals that a better keeper would have saved.

During the run in last season, there was a constant debate as to “whether a better keeper would have saved that” as we lost leads against Liverpool, Southampton and West Ham. The feeling in the pub was that whilst Ramsdale might not have made a glaring error, another keeper might have made the save.

So we now have David Raya. He makes those saves that Ramsdale does not – which is proven in both the xG prevented this season and last. Raya had a +5.9 xG prevented against Ramsdale with a -1 (for those who do not understand, that means Raya conceded nearly 6 goals less than he should have, whilst Ramsdale conceded 1 more than he should have).

But Raya also makes more errors that lead to goals. And it is these errors that lead to people thinking he is the worse keeper. Let me paint a scenario:

2 goal keepers face the exact same 10 shots

Keeper 1
Saves 8
Concedes 2
1 of which goes down as an error leading to a goal

Keeper 2
Saves 7
Concedes 3
0 of which goes down as an error leading to a goal

Which is the better keeper? Keeper 1 who has conceded 2, or keeper 2 that has conceded 3? It would take a lot of mental gymnastics for you not to answer Keeper 1.

The error leading to the goal is what gets debated, what gets replayed on MOTD, on Sky Sports and on Twitter. Yet over the course of the 10-shots Keeper 1 has conceded less.

Keeper 2 might not have made a glaring error to concede any of his 3 goals, but he also saved 1 less so is making smaller errors that do not get highlighted as much.

And that ultimately is where Arsenal are.

Raya is quite clearly the better keeper, he also makes more errors that lead to goals. But even when you factor those errors in, he still stops more expected goals than Ramsdale.

Back Arteta, back Raya. On to Villa.

Keenos

Luton tears over 23 seconds, New boys come good, Arteta suspended and More

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Luton tears over 23 seconds

Declan Rice’s winner nestled into the bottom corner on 96:23. An extra 23 seconds of injury time.

This has led to pundit such as Alan Shearer to throw their toys out of the pram about where this extra time came from. He has had support from Luton, Tottenham and west Ham fans.

Firstly, I am sure if it was Newcastle scoring 23s after the minimum of 6 minutes were up, Shearer would not have been prodding the losing manager for a response (side note: fair play to Rob Edwards for batting away his baiting).

Secondly, when the clock ticked over to 90 minutes, the ball was out of play. It did not come back into play until 90:29. Anyone who has watched football (which Shearer et al have watched a lot of of), will know that if the ball is out of play at 90, the referee will tend to only start the injury time once play has restarted. So straight away, due to this delay, play was always going to on to 96:29.

Luton, as all clubs will do, took every opportunity to run down the clock. One throw in took 23 seconds. Takehiro Tomiyasu was sent off for taking a throw in quicker! By the time you add they elongated goal kicks, it should not have been a surprise to anyone that the game was still going on as the clock ticked mid-way through the 97th minute.

It is also fairly normal for ref’s to continue the play whilst a team are attacking. Whilst this does frustate me (time should be up when it is up regardless of where the ball is on the pitch), Martin Odegaard was always going to be allowed to pump the ball in for one last attack.

I bet if it was Luton with the ball on the edge of our box and the ref blew up, the Kenilworth Road air would have been filled with a congeries of boo’s and claims that he blew up early to protect Arsenal.

You then would have had Shearer et al recording the entire time the ball was out of play to highlight that Luton were hard done by.

Finally, injury time is a minimum. If there are further delays during injury time (which there were), the ref can add them on (which he did).

It feelt like throughout the game that Amazon were after a story. They wanted their Brentford moment. The commentators were almost cheering on the home side, and all the pundits bar T) were gutted. Declan Rice ruined their fairytail.

New boys come good

Declan Rice will rightly get the plaudits for scoring the winner. He has been a sensational player and has found a new level in his game.

Whilst at West Ham, there was plenty of debate whether he was World Class, his move to Arsenal has cemented himself as the best defensive midfielder in the world. I could not name anyone better.

When the deal was eventually done for £105m, Hammers fans went into defensive mode, celebrating their windful and saying that Arsenal had overpaid. I think it is now clear that had we paid £150m, we still would not have overpaid.

Scary to think what would have happened to the Premier League had Rice signed for Manchester City.

Rice’s fellow big money summer signing also had a fantastic game against Luton, and perhaps his best Premier League performance in an Arsenal shirt.

The sort of goal he scored was a key reason why he was signed.

With Gabriel Jesus’s movement deep and outwide, Havertz has the awareness to drift into the empty space and toepoke a goal it. Those late runs into the box are what made his name for Leverkusen. His finish against Luton was not too much different to that against Lens!

One area where Havertz is fairly underrated is his aerial play. No player won more aerial duels than the German on tuesday night. And when you consider how Luton play, and the size of their team, that is a huge achievement. He gives us the option to go long and break quick.

Havertz passing still needs to improve, and he needs to get invovled in our build up a bit more (32 passes @ 62% completion v 67 passes @ 89% for Odegaard), but then he is one of these players that is always on the fringes of the game and then comes live in the box.

With 3 goals in his last 4 games, we are now seeing on the pitch what Mikel Arteta spoke about on the training ground. Havertz is clearly a top, top player.

We come away from Luton with 3 points, with the 2 new boys playing a huge part in victory. Onwards we go.

Arteta suspended

So Mikel Arteta got a 3rd yellow card of the season for daring to celebrate a 96th minute winner. His booking was for being a meter out of his technical!

This behaviour by officials just further highlight the point Arsenal have made to the
PGMOL – that Arsenal are officiated differently tro other clubs.

In recent times, we have seen the likes of Robert de Zerbi knee slide onto the pitch, Jurgen Klopp run down the touchline, and Pep Guardiola join celebrations on the pitch. I have no issue with any of these. We want to see passion from players and managers.

Do referees in this country want managers to be robots. To sit there and politely clap and say “well done old chap” to the coach sitting next to them?

It does feel the ref was looking for any reason to book Arteta, knowing it would lead to a suspension. This would then support the Daily Mail-led narrative that Arteta’s behaviour is a danger to grassroot referees.

Arsenal continue to be the poster boys for the Daily Mail after daring to criticise the poor refeering in the Premier League. This despite us having only recieved 2 yellow cards for dissent (against Fulham with 11 and Newcastle & Tottenham with 8).

As for Arteta and his coaching staff’s behaviour, Luton was the 5th booking for our management team. That is less than Brighton and Fulham, with Tottenham and Brighton frecieving 2 reds for coaching staff, and Liverpool and Chelsea getting 1. But Arteta will be the problem…

I am sure between now and Christmas, Arsenal Twitter will highlight plentry of Premier League managers stepping further out of their technical area to celebrate goals and not get booked.

David Raya

When Aaron Ramsdale made his errors against Brentford, I refused to pile-on. I will do the same with Raya.

For Luton Town’s second, a keeper being out jumped and out muscled at a corner happens. Raya is not the first, and will certainly not be the last. Elijah Adebayo is a a 6 4 centre forward and I am sure he will bully other goal keepers this season!

Thierry Henry did a fantastic analysis of Luton’s third.

The mistake looks worse then it did as the ball slide under Raya’s body, but as Henry pointed out, this was because he should have gone with his feet and not dived for it. It was a strong shot by Ross Barkley and by diving, Raya could not get down quick enough.

We are top of the league, let’s back all our players. Not try and pile pressure on one player just because you prefer the personality of another.

UTA!

Keenos

https://twitter.com/SheWore/status/1730685563550769478

MATCH REPORT: Luton Town 3 – 4 Arsenal

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Luton Town (1) 3 Arsenal (2) 4

Premier League

Kenilworth Road, 1 Maple Rd East, Luton LU4 8AW

Tuesday, 5th December 2023. Kick-off time: 8.15pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Jakob Kiwior; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, Kai Havertz; Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale; Eddie Nketiah, Cédric Soares, Leandro Trossard, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Reuell Walters.

Scorers: Gabriel Martinelli (20 mins), Gabriel Jesus (45 mins), Kai Havertz (60 mins), Declan Rice (90+7 mins)

Yellow Cards: Gabriel Jesus

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 67%

Referee: Sam Barrott

Assistant Referees: Harry Lennard, Nick Hopton

Fourth Official: Darren Bond

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Chris Kavanagh; AVAR Lee Betts

Attendance: c.11,500

For tonight’s game, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Leandro Trossard have been dropped to the substitute’s bench as Jakub Kiwior, Ben White and Kai Havertz come in. Unfortunately, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Thomas Partey, Emile Smith-Rowe, Fabio Vieira and Jurrien Timber remain unavailable for selection due to their respective injuries. On a congratulatory note, Bukayo Saka is set to make his two hundredth appearance for Arsenal in all competitions, at Kenilworth Road this evening. Aged 22 years and 91 days, he would become the second youngest English player to reach the milestone for Arsenal, bettered only by the legendary Cliff Bastin back in 1934.

We kicked off proceedings here at Kenilworth Road on a cold December evening, with both sets of players moving at quite a fast pace indeed. Gabriel kicked a ball forward extremely strongly, but the Luton goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski gathered up the ball just before Gabriel Jesus could get to it. Gabriel Martinelli went to the floor following a bad tackle from Teden Mengi; he carried on, but it appeared that he had problems with his back. The home side were extremely physical in going about their business, with several of our players being badly fouled within the first ten minutes of the game. The physicality of the general nature of the match meant that there was no real chances in the first fifteen minutes of the game, as our boys were trying to find a way through the home side’s close marking style of play. However, after twenty minutes of play, we finally found a breakthrough when a poor Luton back pass saw goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski clear the ball into touch, but it bounced back off the advertising hoardings; Gabriel Jesus took a quick throw-in, finding Bukayo Saka who pulled it back and Gabriel Martinelli simply guided it into the bottom corner, just inside the post. Sadly our lead didn’t last too long, as four minutes later, Gabriel Osho equalised with a header from a corner. Shortly afterwards, Gabriel Jesus nearly restored our lead, when Martin Ødegaard, surrounded by Luton players, still managed to play it through to Gabriel Jesus who took a touch and quickly fired the ball at the goal, but the goalkeeper got a hand to it, and sent it behind for a corner, which came to nothing. Gabriel Jesus, on the left of the Luton penalty area, found a route to goal blocked so he passed a neat ball to Gabriel Martinelli and although it was a great strike, which was heading for the top corner, incidentally, goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski athletically got to the ball and clawed it away. So close. Declan Rice passed a lovely ball into the path of Bukayo Saka, whose left-footed shot from the right hand side of the penalty area was saved again by the goalie as it was heading for the top left corner of the net. Right on the stroke of half-time, we grabbed our second goal of the evening when Bukayo Saka released Ben White out on the right wing, and he quickly crossed the ball into the the middle of the penalty area, finding Gabriel Jesus, who simply nodded it into the net from close range; shortly afterwards our goalscorer received a yellow card for a silly tackle, but despite plenty of furious play from both teams in the five minutes injury time, we went into the break the better off of the two sides by the odd goal in three.

The home side started the second half in earnest, and this half had started in exactly the same way as the first ended, fiercely competitive. Four minutes after the restart, the home side scored the equaliser in the same manner as the first, courtesy of Elijah Adebayo. We immediately came back at them, with two good attempts by Bukayo Saka and Jakob Kiwior and after an excellent Kai Havertz header which just went over the crossbar, Ross Barkley scored the home side’s third goal with a left-footed shot from thje left side of the goal. However, on the hour, Luton had a throw-in, lost the ball and suddenly we sprang into life. The ball was played into the path of Gabriel Jesus and he slotted the ball towards the direction of Kai Havertz, who got there ahead of goalie Thomas Kaminski to steer it into the goal for our third of the evening. A few minutes later, Jakub Kiwior and Gabriel Martinelli made way for Oleksandr Zinchenko and Leandro Trossard and suddenly both sides were more competitive than ever. Our captain put a fierce shot into the Luton goal, which was saved well by the goalie with fifteen minutes of the game remaining, and a couple of minutes later, after some super work by Bukayo Saka out on the right wing, he passed the ball to Leandro Trossard, who disappointingly blasted the ball over the bar from close range. We had yet another penalty appeal turned down by VAR, and then a superb Ben White cross again found the head of Kai Havertz whose header went narrowly wide of the left-hand post. With four minutes of the match remaining, some clever passing play found Leandro Trossard, whose right-footed shot went narrowly wide of the post. In the six minutes injury time, there was some extremely strong play from both sides, facing some nervous defenders, but right at the death, just when everythjing pointed to a draw, Declan Rice headed the ball into the back of the net past Thomas Kaminski from captain Martin Ødegaard’s cross from outside the penalty area! Unbelievable!

What an ending! What a team! Time just seemed to stand still at the end of the game as Declan Rice’s header went into the back of the net. A superb performance from the boys, they showed plenty of guts and fortitude, even at times when things looked a bit dodgy out there. They never gave up, kept going, right until the final whistle. And the icing on the cake is that we are five points ahead of Liverpool tonight, which is magnificent. Well done, chaps!

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Aston Villa at Villa Park on Saturday, 9th December at 5.30pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon