{"id":957,"date":"2026-04-07T09:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=957"},"modified":"2026-04-07T09:04:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:04:50","slug":"raya-we-must-enjoy-this-massive-opportunity-video-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/?p=957","title":{"rendered":"Raya: “We must enjoy this massive opportunity” | Video | News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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David Raya believes we have to enjoy the run-in as we head to Lisbon for the UEFA Champions League quarter-final first leg against Sporting CP.<\/p>\n

The Spanish stopper has called on the team to grasp the opportunity in front of us as we look to reach back-to-back UCL semi-finals for the first time in our history.<\/p>\n

Off the back of two successive defeats in the Carabao Cup and FA Cup, David said: “I think we just have to focus on ourselves, enjoy every day, training and playing together, it’s a massive opportunity.<\/p>\n

“We are in a really, really good position, especially in the Premier League, and obviously we have an opportunity tonight to win, and then we’ll see what happens. But the most important thing is to enjoy being together and enjoy being out there playing football because if you don’t enjoy it, it’s not worth it.”<\/p>\n

We triumphed 5-1 in Lisbon last season, going up against a Sporting side that featured Viktor Gyokeres.<\/p>\n

Viktor netted 97 times in his two seasons in the Portuguese capital, and David believes our Swedish forward will have extra motivation facing his former employers.<\/p>\n

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\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n

Preview: Sporting CP v Arsenal <\/span>
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He said: “I think so, I think it gives you that extra motivation if you want to say it like this, going back to your old club and where you have developed as a player and as a person. So, he’ll be able to play and score goals, so let’s hope he can score a few.<\/p>\n

“We know it’s going to be very, very tough. I think Sporting’s record at home is really, really good. We expect a big battle, two teams that want the ball and they want to attack, so we are ready for it, but we know it’s going to be a tough battle.”<\/p>\n

David joined us from Brentford in 2023 and has since played more than 130 times for us.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard plays a key role in both defending and kick-starting attacks, something which he enjoys. “I am the last line of defence and the first line of attack,” David said. “So I try to apply what the boss wants me to do with the ball and without the ball, trying to find those advantages to carry the ball to the other goal.<\/p>\n

“So basically what we try to do is, from the back, we try to score, and that’s the way we play and I feel very, very confident to play this way and I really, really enjoy it. I feel like I’ve been enjoying this football since I came here and taking that responsibility to help the team to win games.”<\/p>\n

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\n Read more<\/span> <\/p>\n

Raya reliant: 100 PL appearances for Arsenal <\/span>
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Copyright 2026 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Raya believes we have to enjoy the run-in as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialsport.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}