Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville called out one Arsenal player for an error that he kept repeating against Manchester City.
In general, Arsenal produced an extremely solid defensive display to hold Manchester City to a 0-0 draw.
The Gunners were excellent at the back at the Etihad Stadium. Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba won their duel with Erling Haaland, keeping the Manchester City striker quiet throughout the game.
On top of that, right-back Ben White was hailed for the bravery and “authority” of his play. Mikel Arteta will be delighted with how his rearguard kept Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions at bay.
The platform provided by the defenders allowed Arsenal to earn their first Premier League point away from home against Manchester City since 2016.
Gary Neville highlights David Raya struggles v Man City
However, goalkeeper David Raya had a couple of sticky moments with the ball at his feet. In the first half in particular, on a slick pitch, the Spanish shot-stopper struggled to keep his feet, leading to a number of miscued kicks. Even when his footing didn’t let him down, his distribution was often still poor.
This meant that on a number of occasions Manchester City were gifted the ball in dangerous areas. It was only the swiftness with which the rest of the Arsenal players reacted to these incidents that meant Arteta’s side were not punished for any of Raya’s errors.
Gary Neville was quick to notice the Arsenal goalkeeper’s kicking woes. Speaking on Sky Sports (31/03/24, 17:11), the former Manchester United full-back observed, “Raya’s kicking has been terrible. It’s not helping him that he keeps falling over as he kicks it.”
Peter Smith then added, “Following up on Gary Neville’s point about David Raya’s kicking today…The intention is clearly to go direct – he just kicked the ball out of his hands into the other half of the pitch, something I haven’t seen a Premier League keeper do for years! – but more often than not he’s just giving the ball back to Man City.”
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David Raya owes thanks to Arsenal teammates
In general, distribution is one of the strengths of the Brentford loanee’s game. It is certainly one of the aspects of his play which encouraged Arteta to make him the Arsenal No. 1 ahead of Aaron Ramsdale in the first place.
Raya has also built up a lot of credit with the Arsenal fanbase owing to his recent penalty to shootout heroics against Porto in the Champions League. Had the Gunners conceded a goal, and subsequently lost this match, off the back of one of his inaccurate clearances though, then there would have been a storm of criticism.
This was a high pressure game, and Raya will likely feel that he was bailed out somewhat by his Arsenal teammates.