Kepa Arrizabalaga described his home debut as the perfect night as he helped us to a 2-0 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.
The Spanish goalkeeper had to be at his very best during the contest at Emirates Stadium, making several important stops to keep our sixth successive clean sheet in all competitions.
Kepa denied Carlos Baleba from range before superbly saving Giorginio Rutter's effort when the forward was played through as the Seagulls looked to take an early lead.
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The stopper denied Maxim De Cuyper in the second half before goals from Ethan Nwaneri and Bukayo Saka put us into the last eight of the tournament.
Talking about his early saves, Kepa said: "I just try to act and try to be calm and try to solve the situation in the best way. It was an important moment in the game because it was at the beginning. We had a bit of time to adapt, to resolve some problems they were creating for us, and I think, in the second half, we played better."
Kepa made his competitive debut for us against Port Vale in the previous round, keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 win. This time, his shutout was in front of our home support and the 31-year-old was thrilled to represent in N5.
He said: "I played a friendly game in the summer, but it was my first official game here in front of our fans. I'm really happy because everything went well; we kept a clean sheet, we got a win, so it was a perfect night."
In his pre-match press conference, Mikel Arteta praised Kepa's mentality as we look to compete across all fronts this season. Following our eighth straight victory across all competitions, Kepa commented on the importance of maintaining the momentum.
He said: "We have to keep going. We know how hard the league is, Champions League, cup games, a lot of games, so we have to stick together. We have a big squad, we have to be available, all of us. We have to push each other because it's going to be a long season and we have to take this momentum and keep it going."
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