ARSENAL KEEPER RAYA GUARANTEED LEAGUE GOLDEN GLOVE

Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya has won the Premier League’s Golden Glove after Luton scored against Everton’s Jordan Pickford on Friday.

Raya has kept 14 clean sheets in 29 league matches this season having joined the Gunners on loan from Brentford in the summer.

Before Everton’s match on Friday, Pickford was the only keeper that could have overtaken Raya in the Golden Glove standings.

But Pickford’s hopes of winning the individual accolade outright were ended when Elijah Adebayo equalised for Luton after 31 minutes in his side’s 1-1 draw on Friday.

The Everton and England stopper still trails Raya by two clean sheets with two fixtures remaining, and can, at best, only match the Spaniard.

Does Raya award vindicate Arteta?
Eyebrows were raised when Raya joined on a season-long loan from Brentford in August with the option to make the move permanent.

The Gunners already had a settled keeper in Aaron Ramsdale who had played all 38 of Arsenal’s matches the previous season, keeping 14 clean sheets.

A day after the signing a poll of BBC Sport readers resulted in 63% saying Ramsdale should keep his place over Raya.

Raya had an underwhelming start to the season, with his lowest point coming after making two errors in Arsenal’s last-gasp 4-3 win over Luton in December.

But he was the hero for his side in March when he saved two penalties as Arsenal beat Porto in a shootout to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

BBC Sport chief football writer Phil McNulty even said his performance that night “settled all lingering arguments about his status as Arsenal’s first-choice goalkeeper”.

Since breaking into the Arsenal side in September, Raya has only missed two league matches this season when he was ineligible to face parent club Brentford.

Ramsdale played in both those games with Arsenal winning the first 1-0 and the second 2-1.

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