Gianluigi Donnarumma vs David Raya: Man City or Arsenal – who have the better goalkeeper in Premier League title race? | Football News

In the last few weeks of the Premier League season, the importance of goalkeepers in the title race has been extremely visible.

In February alone, Gianluigi Donnarumma made a vital stop at Anfield to gain Manchester City two extra points at Anfield, then days later David Raya dropped two points for Arsenal at Wolves.

“They gave us the title race we have now,” said Jamie Carragher. “That shows how important the role is right now. That’s how important goalkeepers are in the title race.”

This importance is not new. A decade ago, John Terry talked about the importance of Petr Cech winning his Chelsea team an extra 12 to 15 points in a season. And while discussing the topic with Edwin Van der Sar on Monday Night Football, Carragher believes that is still the case.

“A goalkeeper, in terms of winning the title, is almost the most important thing,” the Sky Sports pundit said.

“I don’t think you can win the title without a top goalkeeper, but you can win the title without a top-quality player in every other position.”

A Premier League-winning goalkeeper with Manchester United, Van der Sar backed that view up. “You can’t win it without one,” he said. “No matter how many good players you have, you need to have a capable guy between the sticks that wins you the game.

“Both City and Arsenal have extremely good goalkeepers, but different in styles.”

So which one out of Donnarumma and Raya is best-placed to deliver the title for their respective teams. We go through the stats…

The bigger, the better – Donnarumma’s shot-stopping skills

There was one phrase that stood out when Pep Guardiola signed Donnarumma for his Man City side in the summer.

“He’s so tall, he’s so huge,” said the City boss. And that has proven to be useful on multiple occasions this season.

Donnarumma’s standout save at Anfield is one of many moments where the Italian has shown his elite shot-stopping ability – and his size has a lot to do with it.

“It’s an incredible save,” Van der Sar said, analysing on Sky Sports duty. “We won’t know until the last game of the season in May if that’s a title-winning save. But it’s not even a fingertip save.

“He’s a big man. His reach is enormous. It helps in that way. Goalkeepers with a larger frame have a little bit of an advantage.”

That sizeable frame has allowed Donnarumma to have the second-best save percentage in the Premier League this season. He has also saved nearly three goals of xG this season, with only five Premier League goalkeepers having a better record than the City man.

Compared to Donnarumma in these two statistics, Raya does not compete. His save percentage sits at just 66 per cent, while he has let in nearly 2.5 of xG this season – only four top-flight goalkeepers have a worse record this season.

Yet, Raya still has some standout saves this season. There was a brilliant stop to gain two points at home to Brighton in December, while last weekend’s clearance off the line at Tottenham also proved crucial to Arsenal getting a statement win.

Raya is five inches shorter than Donnarumma but makes up for it with the spring he has from his feet. It was drilled into him at Blackburn Rovers by his goalkeeper coach at the time in Steven Drench.

Speaking to Sky Sports in 2023, Drench said: “The thing about David is he’s not your normal 6ft 4in, 6ft 5in goalkeeper and he’s been fighting against that stereotype.

“You see some of the saves he makes now, he’s saving the ball two or three yards past his post because his feet are that quick. He’s that agile and powerful that when he does take that step, he’s covering more of the goal. He’s making difficult saves look very, very easy.

“And if you ever meet him, he has hands like shovels, they’re massive.”

Van der Sar backs up that theory. “Fabien Barthez was a different goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford a little bit. You have to have good reactions and a good jump,” he said.

So these are two goalkeepers making top-quality saves – but with different shot-stopping styles.

But is Raya better at everything else?

Donnarumma’s the clear winner in terms of shot stopping and Van der Sar feels that is crucial for a title-winning team.

“Goalkeepers are there to save shots,” said the Dutchman. “To stop the ball going into the net; it’s great if you can claim a cross and trying to distribute, but it’s about shot-stopping.”

However, if you look at the stats from goalkeeper experts Goalkeeper.Com, a lot of the other key metrics when analysing goalkeepers falls in Raya’s favour.

According to the goalkeeper performance metrics, Raya sits in the top-five goalkeepers in the Premier League for claiming crosses, sweeping up through balls and distribution. For the latter, Donnarumma sits in the bottom five.

“The way the game has changed now, if a goalkeeper is good with their feet, that’s one of the first checkpoints coaches look for,” said Raya’s former goalkeeper coach in Drench.

“Can they make saves? Can they collect crosses? Can they be good with their feet? He’s like an extra outfield player.”

Another is sweeper keeping, which measures how quickly goalkeepers come off their line to snuff out attacks. Carragher used another Spanish goalkeeper in Pepe Reina to describe how useful a ‘rush goalie’ can be.

“It’s about reading the game. But it’s also pace,” he said. “I go back to Pepe Reina coming in at Liverpool and I remember Rafa Benitez describing him as ‘quick’. I never heard anyone describe a goalkeeper like that at all.

“It was always about shot stopping. It’s all about the detail now, and at a completely different level now. That was 20 years ago.”

Van der Sar was also famed for coming out of his goal and sweeper keeping. “It was one of the things I really loved – getting out of the box and making sure you collect the ball before the striker’s there,” he said.

“What are the distances? That’s something you speak about with the manager and the goalkeeper coach. That’s what you need in a goalkeeper.

“That’s a transformation from goalkeepers only making saves, to distributing, trying to keep possession, playing outside the box. It’s changed a lot since 15 years ago.

“The pressure and the things they have to do them now really make them like an 11th outfield player.”

What about errors leading to goals?

But as Van der Sar says, there is pressure on goalkeepers now to deliver. And sometimes that pressure can be too great.

For Arsenal, there have been signs that Raya’s quick-thinking in coming out can lead to trouble. Against Wolves, he rushed out of his goal to claim a cross that led to two points being dropped.

A similar moment happened against Sunderland in November, when Brian Brobbey finished into an empty net after beating Raya to a ball he was unlikely to get to.

“It’s all about communication. You can’t afford too many of these during the season,” said Van der Sar.

“In the run-up towards the league title, it’s important to show that the quality is in the goal. It’s important to convince everybody there’s no goal [for the opposition] to get there.”

The mistake against Wolves was Arsenal’s fourth error leading to a goal in 2026 – only Tottenham have managed more since the turn of the year.

And the only team without a single one? Manchester City.

Will Donnarumma’s experience count?

What helps to limit the amount of errors is experience. And Donnarumma certainly has that.

He arrived at City in the summer with a huge honours list, having guided Paris Saint-Germain to the Champions League title just months before. He also has four French league titles and five French domestic cups to his name.

In addition to that, he played a crucial role to guiding Italy to the Euro 2020 title – which was won by two penalty shootouts in the semi-finals and final, against England.

Raya won the same tournament with Spain three years later, albeit as a back-up goalkeeper. His only other honours are his 2021 Championship play-off final win with Brentford, and two Premier League Golden Glove awards on an individual basis.

“In this title run-in, I would take Donnarumma,” said Carragher, when asked to pick between him and Raya. “Just because of him being there in the pressure moments. The level he’s played at before. Raya hasn’t got those honours just yet.

“I love Raya, I think he’s absolutely fantastic. But for the average football fan, when you think of a goalkeeper making saves to win the league, everyone will just look at that.

“If Man City win the league, everyone will remember that save that he made at Anfield. And maybe there’s more to come from both goalkeepers.”

However, Van der Sar provided an interesting theory that Raya has more experience in the Premier League. This coming from a player who, like Raya, moved from west London to a title-challenging team during the early 2000s.

“David has come from the Premier League, he played at Brentford for a while,” said Van der Sar. “I played four years at Fulham, then six years at United.

“I thrived in the way the English game was. David knows what the Premier League is all about.”

Raya and Donnarumma met at this stage of the season last term, when Arsenal met PSG in the Champions League semi-finals.

The now-City goalkeeper proved to be the key difference over the two legs. Will he be the difference once again in the title race?