This David Raya performance might silence every remaining doubt

As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder and, after two matches without David Raya, Arsenal fans truly appreciated their number one goalkeeper in Lisbon on Tuesday night. The Gunners traveled to Portugal following back-to-back defeats, beaten by Manchester City in the EFL Cup Final before being ousted from the FA Cup at Southampton.

In both matches though, cup keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga was the Spaniard donning the gloves, very much at fault for the first goal of the afternoon at Wembley. Well, with Raya restored at Estádio José Alvalade for this week's Champions League quarter-final first leg against Sporting CP, he underlined his importance by putting in a man of the match performance.

On the night, he made five saves, preventing an astronomical xG figure of 1.57. The most impressive of his saves came in the first few minutes when Maxi Araújo burst in behind, getting the slightest finger tip on his thunderous effort which diverted in onto the crossbar. Later on, Raya twice denied Geny Catamo, without which Kai Havertz would not have been able to snatch victory at the death.

This though was far from a one off, with Raya consistently proving himself to be one of the world's best goalkeepers for two or three seasons now.

Champions League goalkeeper statistics 2025/26

The Arsenal number one ranks first in this season's Champions League for a wide-variety of metrics. He has conceded just three goals in ten appearances thus far, these scored by Lennart Karl of Bayern Munich, Petar Sučić of Internazionale and Bayer Leverkusen captain Robert Andrich.

His save percentage of 90% is by some distance the best, while only Temirlan Anarbekov of Kairat and Galatasaray's Uğurcan Çakır have prevented a higher number of expected goals. This is pretty impressive considering Raya has faced only 30 shots on target; 29 goalkeepers have seen more.

Without wanting to be too simplistic about it, Mikel Arteta's team are out of contention to win the two competitions Arrizabalaga plays in, while are fighting for the trophies in which Raya starts. Assuming Arsenal finish the job next Wednesday, it appears as though it'll be Atlético Madrid who await them in the semi-finals. Diego Simeone's side upset the odds to win 2-0 at Camp Nou on Wednesday, with a stunning free-kick from Julián Álvarez and a late goal by Alexander Sørloth downing Barcelona.

The Gunners did demolish los Colchoneros 4-0 during the league phase, but many supporters will still be scarred by their 2-1 aggregate defeat to Atleti in the Europa League during Arsène Wenger's final season in charge. Eight years on, Tuesday night's 1-0 win in Lisbon took Arteta's team one step closer to Budapest, with Raya very much key to their hopes of both Premier League and Champions League glory.