18 October 2023 , 06:00
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Mikel Arteta is not one to shy away from innovating, but the Arsenal manager's verdict on rotating goalkeepers this season has certainly raised eyebrows.
The Gunners signed Brentford goalkeeper David Raya in the summer to compete with Aaron Ramsdale for the club's No.1 jersey. Ramsdale had established himself as one of Arsenal's key players prior to Raya's arrival, but the Spaniard has already leapfrogged him in the Emirates pecking order.
Arteta has already claimed that neither are No.1 but both can expect plenty of football. However, that approach has already been questioned in the past by Rio Ferdinand, who was left baffled by Arsene Wenger 's decision to rotate Petr Cech and David Ospina back in 2017, with the latter playing Champions League games.
Speaking in The Evening Standard at the time, Ferdinand said: “I just don’t understand it. Ospina is clearly a good keeper and one that manager Arsene Wenger rates highly but Petr Cech is the No.1 at the club and should have been playing in the group games.
“There are many reasons why I don’t agree with this policy. For starters, Wenger signed a new centre-half in Shkodran Mustafi in the summer and this is a key period of the season for the defence and keeper to work on their understanding.
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“The relationship between the goalkeeper and the two centre-halves is one of the most important on a football pitch. The more time Cech plays with Laurent Koscielny and Mustafi, the better it is for all of them. They have still qualified for the last 16, so Wenger will be happy about that but could they be ahead of PSG in the group rather than behind if Cech had been in goal up until now? It is a possibility.”
Six years on, Arteta's desire to utilise both Ramsdale and Raya has already proved controversial. Defending the decision to bring Raya in, the Spaniard said: “To be better the environment has to be better.
Join the debate! Do you agree with Arteta's plan, Arsenal fans? Let us know here.
David Raya has seemingly replaced Aaron Ramsdale as Arsenal's first-choice goalkeeper (Getty Images)“When you have to be at 100 per cent every day, believe me, your level increases. We have two great goalkeepers, just like we have two great left wingers, two great holding midfielders, two great strikers. There is no number one - not in any position.”
Raya has played all of Arsenal's Premier League games since stepping in to replace Ramsdale against Everton last month. The Brentford loanee, who is expected to make his move permanent next summer, has also played in both of the club's Champions League fixtures.
The Gunners new boy did look shaky, though, during the first-half of Arsenal's win over Manchester City last weekend. And Gary Neville believes that Arteta's risky tactic could compound any situation where Raya or Ramsdale make a mistake.
He said on Sky Sports in September: “The problem is you end up with a situation [where] every time a goalkeeper makes a mistake - which they inevitably do - you end up in a situation where you say: 'Will they then play the next guy the next week'.
“ Once you do that once, you've undermined the situation and created what I think is a very difficult situation for everybody in the team: you haven't got stability with your back four and both goalkeepers feel little bit unnerved and anxious that if they make a mistake they're out. I'm interested to see what Mikel Arteta does with it and how he manages it, because I've never seen it before work really well. ”