Gian Piero Gasperini heaped praise on David Raya’s ‘fantastic’ and ‘crucial’ double-save following Atalanta’s stalemate with Arsenal in the Champions League, comparing the goalkeeper’s reflexes to those of a cat.
Serie A outfit Atalanta were awarded a penalty in the 48th minute after Thomas Partey’s clumsy foul on Ederson and Mateo Retegui stepped up to take the spot-kick at in Bergamo.
Raya got down low to his right-hand side to deny Retegui’s initial effort before quickly returning to his feet to keep out the forward’s headed rebound and keep the scoreline goalless.
It proved the standout moment from an otherwise lacklustre affair in which both teams managed just two shots on target across the 90 minutes.
‘He’s a cat! The [initial] save is okay but the second save on the rebound is fantastic,’ Atalanta manager Gasperini told reporters when asked about Raya’s incredible double-save at his post-match press conference.
‘Perhaps for Mateo Retegui it was probably the second chance that he missed, not on the penalty.
‘But I believe the goalkeeper has been crucial and I feel sorry for Mateo Retegui because I believe it was his best performance since he’s been here with us.
‘It would have been an extra cherry on top if he had scored a goal tonight.’
Gasperini was pleased with his side’s performance against last year’s runners-up in the Premier League and felt there was still room for improvement going forward in the competition.
‘I think it’s been a very useful game because we faced a very tough team,’ he added.
‘They were difficult to overcome but we didn’t concede much to them.
‘We are coming off this game with a performance from our strikers that we haven’t seen for a long time. It showed that we can potentially play with three strikers going forward.
‘I think that made it easier for those at the back and also the squad.
‘Also, when you play against these teams that are very solid and strong at the back, we have done some very good things that we repeat in the future.
‘It is not easy doing so when you face teams with such a strong defence but today in the game build-up I think we did really well and we can also improve it.’
After the match, Arsenal’s hero Raya credited goalkeeping coach Inaki Cana for the advice he gave in the build-up to Retegui’s second-half penalty.
‘I took the decision to go to the sideline because it was a long wait to decide if it was a penalty or not,’ the Spaniard told TNT Sports.
‘So I just went to speak with the goalie coach to have more sense of where to go and where not to go and what to do and what not to do.
‘He helped me a lot in every aspect. Credit to him, he does all the work for everything and it’s great to have the save with him.