‘Mistakes are part of football’: David Raya pledges to learn from derby error
Arsenal keeper gifted goal to Spurs that inspired late barrageRaya pleased with his response that ensured side took the win
It was the kind of mistake, so aberrant and out of keeping with everything before it, that can derail an entire season’s work. David Raya’s blunder at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was hardly on the scale of a Steven Gerrard slip but, as Spurs took grateful receipt of the gift and threw everything into a late barrage on the Arsenal goal, there was the short-lived sense that one simple miscue could prove decisive.
Would Raya have attempted a sand-wedged pass to Thomas Partey if Arsenal had not been three goals up? Perhaps not. Would Cristian Romero, a centre-back, have been the man to intercept and score if Spurs had not needed a performative show of buccaneering to rouse them? That seems especially unlikely. The afternoon’s tone transformed but what ultimately mattered for Mikel Arteta’s side was that Raya rediscovered his composure and, in those dying moments, dominated his box to see them home.
