David Raya has said competition for starting spots is driving Arsenal\u2019s blistering form and the goalkeeper believes the \u201cincredible\u201d depth of Mikel Arteta\u2019s squad means they are capable of challenging on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n
The 4-0 thrashing of Atl\u00e9tico Madrid<\/a> on Tuesday was Arsenal\u2019s sixth successive victory and their 10th win from their first 12 matches. Arsenal have conceded only three goals \u2013 the fewest at this stage in the club\u2019s history \u2013 to help establish a three-point lead at the top of the Premier League and a perfect record in the Champions League after three matches.<\/p>\n Raya has started in every game apart from the Carabao Cup win against Port Vale<\/a> last month but Arteta has been regularly rotating after spending more than \u00a3250m on recruits in the summer. Raya, asked whether that meant they could challenge for more than one trophy this season, said: \u201cYes, I think so. I think the depth of the squad is incredible. We have a lot of players and we have a lot of players that can play in two, three, four different positions.<\/p>\n \u201cLike [against Atl\u00e9tico], [Mikel] Merino came on as a striker and he can play as a No 8, he can play as a No 10. So, that\u2019s the variety that the boss has and he\u2019s using it for our advantage and for the best of the team. It\u2019s looking very, very good and that depth is very important for us.<\/p>\n \u201cThat gives you an extra level in training and in games because if you\u2019re not at it every day, you can lose your spot in a fraction [of a second]. So, that gives that competitiveness in training and in games. That\u2019s really, really important and everybody is on board with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Arsenal have conceded only one goal from open play this season and Raya has had only one shot on target to deal with in their past three wins, against Atl\u00e9tico, Fulham and West Ham.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a collective effort from the striker to the goalie,\u201d the Spain international said. \u201cSo, everyone is on it, everyone doesn\u2019t want to give anything and everyone wants to intercept that ball before it is getting even to the halfway line. So, if we intercept that ball, that means we can have a short counter. It\u2019s really, really important for everyone to feel that way and we\u2019re not giving away that many chances, which is perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Raya has said competition for starting spots is driving Arsenal\u2019s blistering form and the goalkeeper believes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-233310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}