Arsenal star ‘scared’ Henry in ‘lucky’ Sevilla win as pundit claims Arteta decision leads to ‘nit-picking’
Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya “scared” club legend Thierry Henry during their 2-1 win over La Liga outfit Sevilla on Tuesday night.
The Gunners caused a stir when they signed Raya from Brentford during the summer transfer window. He has initially joined the London outfit on loan but this deal could be made permanent for £27m next year.
Raya has quickly dislodged Aaron Ramsdale to become Arsenal’s new number-one goalkeeper despite the Englishman barely putting a foot wrong in recent seasons under Mikel Arteta.
The Spain international – who is ranked as the tenth-best goalkeeper in the Premier League – has endured a rough start at Arsenal as he has made a couple of mistakes in key moments and he overcome one or two shaky moments during their victory over Sevilla in the Champions League group stages earlier this week.
Henry admitted he “stopped breathing for a little while” during the latter stages of Tuesday night’s win.
“Is it a save? I mean, I stopped breathing for a little while,” Henry said on CBS Sports.
“That’s how it was in the last five, six minutes which I can understand away from home, we talked about it off air that it’s a tough place to go and win or play Sevilla,
“I just thought at times we were inviting too many crosses and when I saw Raya coming to save that I got a bit scared but we got our luck this time, we got lucky.”
Michael Owen meanwhile reckons pundits are “nit-picking” with Raya as his every move is being “scrutinised”.
“Listen, all eyes are on Raya at the moment. If you’re keeping clean sheets all the time no-one says anything,” Owen told TNT Sports.
“But because of what’s happened in the past, every single thing he does we end up scrutinising and saying, ‘Oh would Ramsdale have done that?’ and, ‘oh should they be playing out in that situation?’
“He came for a cross, he went to punch it, he miscued it a little bit and it nearly spun into his own goal.
“He had a couple of little mistakes in the first half as well trying to play out.
“But at the end of the day, we’re nit-picking and that is a cracking result for Arsenal. I think they’d have been happy coming away not getting beat tonight but to get the three points puts them in a really strong position now.”
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