'HARD ROAD'
I spent three months on loan at Southport and had to wash my own kit – now I’m starring for Arsenal in Champions League
The star says his rise to the top is not "typical"
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DESPITE only being 28 years of age, Arsenal keeper David Raya has had something of a journeyman career on the way to making it to the top.
The keeper said as much in an interview with where he admitted "My story isn’t the typical footballer’s story".
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Raya was brought in to be Arsenal's first-choice keeper this summer in something of a surprise transfer.
His £3million loan move with a £27m option to buy raised eyebrows given that Aaron Ramsdale had looked to have made Arsenal's No1 spot his own over the past couple of seasons.
Mikel Arteta initially said he would rotate the pair, but Raya soon became the established first choice - both in the Premier League and Champions League.
And his shootout heroics in Europe's premier competition against Porto seemed light years away when he moved to England.
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On his "hard road" to become Arsenal's first choice keeper, Raya looked back on how he went from a back up keeper in Spanish third division side Cornellia's youth team to transferring to Blackburn at the age of 16 after the team were invited to train at the Lancashire club.
Raya joined Blackburn not speaking a word of English but adjusted to the country in the club's academy before going on loan to Southport to make his first-team debut aged 18.
On his experience at the National League side, Raya said: "We trained at the local university.
"You took your kit home to wash, came with your bag, towel. I was used to that, I’d lived alone since I was 15, but it grounds you, teaches you not to take things for granted.
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"There were players for whom the win bonus could be the difference between making it to the end of the month or not, having a bit of money for their kids or paying the water, the gas, electricity, mortgage.
"If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have see that. Now it’s deeply ingrained in me."
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After returning to Blackburn, Raya initially played as the backup keeper to Jason Steele before becoming first choice in the 2017-18 season when the club were promoted to the Championship.
After a year as Blackburn's first choice in the second division, he transferred to Brentford where he would help them gain promotion to the Premier League.
Arsenal wanted to sign him off the back of that in 2021, but Brentford were unprepared to sell and the Gunners opted to sign Ramsdale from Sheffield United instead.
It looked as though Raya had missed out on his chance to sign for the Gunners in the two years since that transfer, with the likes of Tottenham and Bayern Munich interested this summer.
But Raya said after speaking to Arteta it became clear he was still wanted at the Emirates: "It was Mikel I spoke to [this summer]."
After this, he told Brentford he wanted to leave and make the step up to play in the Champions League, saying: "The exposure and pressure [at Arsenal] is greater, but you want that because it’s part of being at a big club. You have to deal with that."
On Raya's ongoing competition with Ramsdale to establish himself as the team's No1, Raya said: "Everyone has their opinion.
"If people want to debate, let them. I have a very good relationship with Aaron and we’re both there to help the team.
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"The manager chooses who plays, and that’s it. There are always going to be debates, all the more so at a club like Arsenal."
And Raya has made the No1 spot his own and vindicated that decision after his double save against Porto secured Arsenal's passage into the Champions League quarter-finals.
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