Arsenal’s on-loan goalkeeper, David Raya has described the club’s Round of 16 win over Porto to reach Champions League Quarter-Finals as an “incredible feeling”.
Leandro Trossard’s 41st minute goal saw Arsenal snatch a 1-0 win on the night which left the tie level 1-1 draw on aggregate, before Raya denied Porto’s Wendell and Galeno to ensure the Gunners’ progress to the Quarter-Finals with a 4-2 victory on penalties.
Speaking post-match to www.arsenal.com, Raya – who joined on a season-long loan from Brentford last summer – described the club’s achievement as “an incredible feeling,” with Arsenal having not reached the Champions League’s last eight since 2009-10 season.
Raya however iterated that his team could of avoided extra time and penalties if had been more clinical, but praised Porto for providing Arsenal with a strong contest across both legs.
“I think we could have scored a few more, but credit to Porto as well, they played a really good game. They played their game and made things very difficult for us, but in the end, it went down to penalties and the players did their part, scored the goals and I was lucky enough to save two.”
Raya has previously been part of Blackburn Rovers’ League One automatic promotion winning squad in 2017-18 season, followed by Brentford’s Championship Play-Off winning squad three seasons later before he helped Spain win the UEFA Nations League last summer.
The Spaniard however has put his performance against Porto amongst his best displays as a goalkeeper, as he said: “I think it’s one of the biggest moments in my career, my whole career. I put it up there and hopefully there’s many more to come here.”
Still in with a chance of achieving the Premier League and Champions League double this season, Raya praised fans for their support, especially in the penalty shootout which took place in the home end of the Emirates Stadium.
“The fans have been fantastic; they’ve been fantastic for a long time,” added Raya. “Especially today, we needed them. They made some noise and got us through spells in which we needed them. They were there for us, and we were there for them.
“We had the fans behind our goal as well and that put a lot of pressure on them and that worked for us. I think that helped us to win the penalty shootout.”
Raya however believes that his team can learn from this experience heading into the run-in, especially with having the weekend off ahead of the international break after their league clash against Chelsea was postponed due to the Blues’ involvement in FA Cup Quarter-Finals.
“I think [this win] is going to give us a big push and give us some experience and some learnings.
“We need to learn a lot of things as well; I thought we managed the game very well in the end which we didn’t do over there, so we’ll learn from that and take the positives and learn from the negatives as well.”
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