David Raya Reveals Arsenal's Inner Circle
David Raya spends most weekends organising the chaos in front of him. This time, he pulled back the curtain on the chaos behind the scenes instead.
In a playful Q&A about his Arsenal team‑mates, the Spanish goalkeeper dished out compliments and gentle digs in equal measure, sketching a lively picture of a squad that clearly doesn’t do quiet.
Noise on the bus, noise in the dressing room
Ask Raya about away trips and he doesn’t talk about tactics or rest. He talks about volume.
"There's a few," he said when asked who makes the most noise. "I would say Ebs [Eberechi Eze], Noni [Madueke], Bukayo [Saka]. They play Uno and they're always shouting."
Uno, it seems, is a full-contact sport on the Arsenal bus. Cards, banter, and a soundtrack of constant yelling from three of the more expressive characters in the group.
Madueke doesn’t just dominate the card table. He also takes an unwanted crown when the music starts.
Raya didn’t hesitate when asked who has the worst taste in music in the squad, naming Madueke as the dressing-room DJ nobody asked for, joking that his team‑mate is "not going to like that". The verdict stands.
Training ground fire and kitchen nightmares
The mood turns sharper on the training pitch. Standards are high, tempers not far behind.
Raya pointed to fellow Spaniard Mikel Merino as the player who despises defeat more than anyone, the one who treats every drill like a cup final. As Raya put it, "he has that competitive in him" – the kind of edge managers crave and team‑mates feel every single session.
If the goalkeeper had to trust someone with dinner, Merino again tops the list. From relentless competitor to reliable chef, the midfielder is Raya’s first choice at the stove.
Not everyone gets that level of faith.
With a grin, Raya warned against sampling the culinary experiments of youngster Max Dowman. "I'm going to say Max Dowman because obviously he's young and he doesn't have the skills yet," he said, sparing Dowman’s feelings with a joke but leaving the message clear: promising future, questionable kitchen.
The lighter labels kept coming. Tommy Setford, Raya revealed, spends the longest in front of the mirror, edging out the rest in the grooming stakes. On the social media front, Piero Hincapie was named the squad’s TikTok addict, the player most likely to be scrolling, filming, or both.
Timber, the unlikely survival expert
The final question took Raya far from north London: which team‑mate would he choose to be stranded with in a desert?
He didn’t go for the loudest voice, the strongest frame, or the best cook. He went for brains.
"I would say Jurrien Timber," Raya said. "He has that cleverness in him and I think he will be a good survivor."
In a squad packed with flair and personality, Timber gets the nod as the man you want beside you when the fun stops and the problem‑solving starts.
From noisy Uno battles to imaginary desert escapes, Raya’s snapshots reveal something that can’t be measured in stats or xG: a group stitched together by humour, competitiveness and character – the kind of dressing room that often decides how far a season can really go.
