David Raya is willing to pull out all the stops to join Arsenal this summer, including handing in a transfer request as he aims to replace Emiliano Martinez.
The 24 year-old enjoyed a thoroughly impressive 2019-20 campaign with Brentford in the Championship, in which they narrowly missed out on automatic qualification to the Premier League, before succumbing to Fulham in the final of the play-offs to miss out once more.
They now look set to be raiding for some of their key stars, with Ollie Watkins headed to Aston Villa, and Said Benrahma and David Raya both linked with moves also.
The latter is keen to make his move to Arsenal after we showed initial interest, although the Bees baulked at our enquiry into his availability.
Raya is now said to be willing to pull out all the stops to make the switch possible, with his agent Jaume Monell confirming to Sport.es.
Arsenal are on the lookout for a new shotstopper who is willing to play understudy to Bernd Leno, who was nominated for Arsenal’s Player of the Season award for last term.
Emiliano Martinez held down the role of second choice throughout last season, but having proven he is deserving of a first-team role when coming in to cover for the German’s injury spell at the end of the last term, he is keen to play more regularly.
The Metro now claims that Martinez is set to join Raya’s former team-mate Watkins at Aston Villa, where he will initially fill the first-team role in place of the injured Tom Heaton.
While we would obviously prefer to see Martinez stay and fight Leno for the first-team role, that option is looking less and less likely at present.
Part of me feels like we should be doing more to persuade Martinez to stay at the club, and that Martinez could well end up proving to be a mistake similar to the one to allow Wojciech Szczesny to leave some years back.
Could Emi prove to be better than Leno in the coming years?
Patrick
