Since signing from Brentford in the summer of 2023, David Raya has proven to be an excellent goalkeeper for Arsenal.
After initially starting last season on the Gunners’ bench, Raya replaced the popular Aaron Ramsdale as Arsenal’s first-choice keeper in September 2023 and has not looked back since.
High points during his time in North London include two saves against Porto in Arsenal’s penalty shootout win in last season’s Round of 16 Champions League tie, as well as winning the Golden Glove award for the most clean sheets across the 2023/24 Premier League campaign.
His time at the Emirates has not been without its difficulties, however, one of which Raya has since revealed to club legend David Seaman was the worst moment of his Premier League career so far.
Arsenal’s 4-3 win at Luton Town was Raya’s toughest game so far
Speaking on the Seaman Says podcast, Raya revealed that Arsenal’s game at Luton last season “was the worst game I played professionally.”
The Spaniard made two costly errors that led to goals, being out-jumped by Luton striker Elijah Adebayo for the Hatters’ second goal and allowing Ross Barkley’s effort to creep under his body for their third, as Arsenal trailed Luton 3-2.
Those two errors followed mistakes in previous weeks, including in a 2-2 draw against Chelsea as Raya again cost his side a goal, with the Spaniard going on to categorise that period of his Arsenal career as “very bad.”
However, Raya also marks the game against Luton as a turning point, explaining: “From there, I think we’ve seen an increasing David in goal… from Luton to the end of the season, it was a very, very good period personally.”
Indeed, the 29-year-old bounced back well, playing in all but one of Arsenal’s 16 wins in their last 18 games as they just missed out on the title to Manchester City.
Luton would go on to be relegated from the Premier League, and they now sit bottom of the Championship after another difficult season.
- READ MORE: Top 10 Premier League managers of all-time ranked, including Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola
Declan Rice’s last-minute winner sealed dramatic comeback win for Gunners
Raya had his teammates to thank for bailing him out at Kenilworth Road.
Under the lights on a cold December evening at a hostile and tightly-packed ground, Arsenal twice took the lead thanks to strikes from Brazilian forwards Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus.
Luton fought back to level both times, however, equalising first through defender Gabriel Osho before Adebayo’s header made it 2-2.
And when Barkley fired underneath the Spaniard to put Luton 3-2 up, it looked as though the Hatters would be in for a famous win.
It was not to be, however, Kai Havertz equalising for Mikel Arteta’s side before Declan Rice broke Luton hearts, heading in a Martin Odegaard cross in the seventh minute of stoppage time to send the Arsenal fans in the away end into raptures.
The post David Raya says the ‘worst’ game of his career was at Arsenal – against a side who now don’t even play Premier League football appeared first on HITC.
from HITC https://ift.tt/VxA2kYy
No comments: