Goalkeepers like David Raya rarely win player of the year awards. They really should

AFC BournemouthArsenalAston VillaBrentfordBrighton & Hove AlbionBurnleyChelseaCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamLeeds UnitedLiverpoolManchester CityManchester UnitedNewcastle UnitedNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham HotspurWest Ham UnitedWolverhampton WanderersScores & ScheduleStandingsFantasyThe Athletic FC NewsletterPodcastsPL Title Race David Raya has won the Premier League's Golden Glove award for the third season in a row David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images Share articleMatt Pyzdrowski is a former goalkeeper who played professionally in the United States and Sweden and now coaches the position. He serves as a goalkeeping analyst for The Athletic. David Raya’s fantastic save against West Ham on Sunday may never live in fans’ memories quite like a game-winning goal but in a tense title race, it carried just as much weight as his Arsenal team-mate Leandro Trossard subsequently scoring at the other end of the pitch. At 0-0 in the 78th minute and with Arsenal wobbling, West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes found himself through on goal, and at near point-blank range. Raya exploded off his line, narrowed the angle in an instant, and produced one of those reflex blocks that seem impossible until you watch the replay of it frame-by-frame. It was not just the stop itself, but the timing. Arsenal were vulnerable and momentum in the match had shifted. One goal for a West Ham side fighting against relegation could have changed the entire emotional temperature of the visitors’ battle with Manchester City for the championship. Instead, Raya remained patient, held the line and made a tremendous point-blank save, crucially helping Arsenal stay alive long enough for Trossard’s deflected winner to ultimately settle matters only minutes later. What a save from David Raya! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/8G0WRqzivb — Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 10, 2026 After the game, former Manchester United and Denmark goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, speaking as a pundit on Viaplay, said Raya is his Premier League player of the year. He argued that Arsenal’s defensive record was less about an impenetrable system and more about a goalkeeper repeatedly rescuing his team in decisive moments. Strip Raya out of this Arsenal side, Schmeichel suggested, and they are nowhere near being top of the table. The interesting part was not necessarily whether you agree with him. It was how quickly the conversation then moved on. Because even during a season in which Raya has arguably been Arsenal’s most important player, he still does not feel like a genuine frontrunner for its major individual awards. Bruno Fernandes’ goals and assists are easier to see. Declan Rice’s control of matches has been easier to feel. Erling Haaland’s numbers overwhelm just about every debate. Goalkeepers, meanwhile, remain stuck in a strange footballing blind spot — acknowledged as essential but rarely celebrated as the defining figure. No goalkeeper has won the Ballon d’Or since Russian great Lev Yashin in 1963. Peter Shilton of Nottingham Forest is the most recent ’keeper to be voted Players’ Player of the Year in England by members of the Professional Footballers’ Association — and that was in 1978. Nearly half a century later, ours remains one of the game’s most under-appreciated positions. Raya’s performances this season are exactly why the discussion feels worth revisiting. Time and time again, the Spaniard has delivered the save Arsenal needed most: not routine stops in comfortable moments but interventions that have preserved results, shifted momentum and kept his team alive when matches threatened to tilt away from them. His stop against Fernandes on Sunday was simply the latest example from him of a goalkeeper repeatedly producing in high-pressure moments when his side needed it the most. With that 1-0 win, Raya secured a third consecutive Premier League Golden Glove award (which goes to the goalkeeper with the most clean sheets each season), placing him alongside only Pepe Reina, Joe Hart and Ederson as the only players to achieve the feat. In total, he has kept clean sheets in half of his 36 league appearances in the current campaign; a remarkable level of consistency that has underpinned Arsenal’s title challenge from the very beginning. But part of why he still doesn’t feel fully part of that player of the year conversation comes down to optics. The reality is that football is built around goals and the entire sport moves emotionally toward moments of attacking success. The roar of the crowd comes with the ball hitting the net, not with a goalkeeper taking away that possibility 20 seconds earlier. A striker scoring a winner in the 89th minute becomes the story, but a ’keeper setting the stage for that goal with a big save in the 60th minute often becomes context. And context is rarely what wins awards. Admittedly, the sport also still struggles to quantify goalkeeping in a way that resonates universally. Expected-goals models have helped demonstrate the value of elite shot-stopping, while post-shot expected goals metrics can show how many goals a goalkeeper prevents relative to expectation. However, those numbers still require interpretation and lack the immediacy of 25 goals or 15 assists in a season. A forward’s contribution is more visible, whereas a goalkeeper’s influence is often preventative, subtle and psychological. Brian Clough once explained Shilton’s value to his Forest side in the simplest possible terms. With Shilton behind them, everyone else played with more confidence. Defenders felt safer. Forwards believed one goal might be enough to win matches. That feeling spread across the whole team. That is the true impact of elite goalkeeping — and it is incredibly difficult to measure. The greatest goalkeepers alter the behaviour of everyone around them. Defenders become more aggressive and teams press higher because they trust and believe their ’keeper can protect the space in-behind that this creates. Full-backs attack more freely. Centre-backs recover more calmly after mistakes because panic does not immediately set in. Simply, the very best goalkeepers create emotional stability. Yet, because that influence is indirect, it rarely translates into mainstream recognition. Goalkeeping remains the most reactive position in football. If a striker misses six good chances but eventually scores the winner, they are still the hero. A goalkeeper can perform flawlessly for 89 minutes yet leave the stadium blamed for one positional mistake or one shot that swerves unexpectedly late. That is the loneliness of the position. Furthermore, goalkeepers are the only individuals in what is fundamentally a collective game. Every action feels isolated, every error personal — and unlike with their outfield colleagues, mistakes are usually irreversible. A midfielder can lose possession 15 times, a centre-forward can disappear for an hour, but the goalkeeper lives in a world where one poor moment can overwrite everything that came before it. That tension is also why the position creates such unique figures psychologically. Goalkeepers spend entire matches trying to prevent the very thing football exists to celebrate. They are the sport’s disruptors, the villain in the narrative, in some ways. Nobody buys tickets to a match hoping to see a goalkeeper dominate and yet, when teams win titles, the truly great sides almost always have one who did. Not just good goalkeepers but defining ones: the type team-mates glance toward during difficult moments and think: “He (or she) will save us.” That aura matters, and it changes outcomes before the save is even made. This is why Schmeichel’s comments about Raya at the weekend resonate beyond simple “goalkeepers’ union” solidarity. Arsenal’s title push this season has not been built on overwhelming attacking brilliance. It has been built on control, resilience and surviving difficult moments. Raya has been central to all of it. Twelve years ago, he was a teenager playing for Southport in the National League, English football’s fifth tier, on loan from Blackburn Rovers. Now he is arguably the most influential goalkeeper in the biggest league on the planet. Will that be enough to put him seriously in the conversation to be its player of the year? Probably not. There is a reason goalkeepers are traditionally the last pick for kickabouts in the schoolyard — it’s not sexy. It has never been football’s fashionable position. Our sport celebrates creation more naturally than prevention. Perhaps, though, seasons like this should force us to rethink that notion. Because when Arsenal’s 2025-26 campaign is remembered, Trossard’s winner against West Ham will sit neatly in the highlight reels and title-race montages. However, without Raya’s intervention minutes earlier, there may never have been a winner for them to celebrate at all. Maybe that is the clearest explanation for why goalkeepers so rarely receive football’s biggest individual awards. Their greatest moments do not create the story — they simply preserve it. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms