\n<\/p>\n
This is obviously not a direct head-to-head. David Raya and Matvey Safonov are unlikely to even get close to one another once the game gets under way – unless, of course, Luis Enrique or Arteta require an extra body in the penalty area while pursuing a last-gasp leveller from a set-piece.<\/span><\/p>\n However, a goalkeeper can, for better or for worse, often prove decisive in a Champions League final – and this is arguably the biggest gulf of quality we’ve seen in the two starting shot-stoppers since 2018, when Loris Karius went up against Thibaut Courtois and effectively handed the trophy to Real Madrid with two terrible errors.<\/span><\/p>\n We’re obviously not trying to say that something similar is in store for Safonov in Budapest, but he’s unquestionably the weak link in this almost perfect PSG team. <\/span><\/p>\n Remember, Luis Enrique infamously ditched Gigi Donnarumma last summer, even though the Italian had been key to PSG’s Champions League success, because he felt Lucas Chevalier was more suited to his style of play. Well, Chevalier has proven a liability from the get-go, leaving Luis Enrique with little choice but to drop the France international at the tail end of November and instead put his faith in Safonov.<\/span><\/p>\n In his defence, the Russian has done a decent job as PSG’s No.1, but he’s simply not in the same class as Raya, who has been almost unbeatable at times this season. Even more worryingly for PSG, though, is that Safonov is suspect at set-pieces – and that’s a major problem for a goalkeeper going up against this Arsenal side.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is obviously not a direct head-to-head. David Raya and Matvey Safonov are unlikely to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}