WOLF says:

you say how szcesny needs to improve his leadership skills but those cant be taught or improved, you either got it or you dont. i personally think he does but there is no point in having a goalie who is a great leader if you dont have the defender to match his leadership skills

Ray says:

Whatever it is, I want Almunia out. Not sure if Manone willing to sit on the bench and not sure if Fabianski willing to do so as well. But we need someone that when the first GK is not around, he must be able to deliver. Like to see us bringing in Steekelenburg to challenge Szczesny.

Besides that, please get rid of Eboue, Squilacci, Denilson, Diably, Bendtner, Rosicky. We don’t need them, free up the wages budget for better players. Appreciate of what they had done for us before this but nowadays they bring nothing but trouble to us.

Cameron says:

We just play so many games a season. I would like to know we have two very class keepers. We lost Wojech, Manuel and Luca this year good thing we had Jens. I feel we need a keeper but its lower priority than a cb or dm.

Biplab says:

I guess u people did not see this NEWS from ARSENE WENGER. This was his comment in the pre-match press conference befor the Arsenal-Liverpool match. Please go through this.

In the pre match interview Arsene Wenger commented:

Wenger: Why I won’t need to buy a new keeper

With many fans hoping for the manager to purchase a new goalkeeper in the summer, they would be disappointed with his pre-match comments today.

Arsène Wenger said that he has full confidence in the young and promising Wojciech Szczesny, who has the potential to be the number one keeper at the club.

The manager also reminded fans that there is also Lukasz Fabianski, who will be challenging Szczesny for the position.

The Frenchman’s comments today will certainly signal the end of Manuel Almunia’s career at the club.

Wenger said: “Szczesny he has the calibre to be a goalkeeper at Arsenal Football Club and we have Fabianski as well.

“Szczesny has the potential [to be No 1]. It will be a fight because Fabianski will be back. We still have Almunia too, he has one year to go [on his contract].

“We can always in mid-season call Jens Lehmann back!”

……………If thats what AW has already decided then we should try and strengthen other parts of our team……………

MikE says:

very good piece.

i watched him at brentford last season and he has all the ingredients to be world class.

an experienced deputy – to give him a breather from time to time as much as anything – would be ideal. someone aged 34 – 36.

we mustn’t block his progress but we must also have someone ready to take his place as his form will dip sooner or later for a few weeks.

i would spend any money we have on dm and rb cover —- and a quality striker to replace our three or four nearly men upfront.

jason says:

OMG why is this even a headline of this site??

Worst debate ever on here OFC we need another goal keeper.

All our keepers at terrible Lehmann is just old in fairness to him.

Neil says:

I originally wrote the bulk of this article as a response to another piece on The GunningHawk so, if it appears a bit dated, that’s because it was written a couple of weeks before it was published here as an independent article. Still, I think a lot of what I wrote still holds true and would like to respond to a couple of the comments that have been made:

As far as my comment about Gigi Buffon being a candidate to come to Arsenal, no, I’m not crazy or a ManU fan. The last two years Buffon has been out injured quite a bit and in his absence Juve has found a replacement that they are very happy with and apparently are intent on going forward with as their # 1 keeper. Additionally, there have been reports in the press on and off over the last two years that Buffon is very unhappy with the way that Juve has treated him during the time he has been injured and is looking to leave the club after this season. And, the same reports have said that Juve would not be averse to shedding Buffon’s salary and would not make it difficult for him to leave. Now, generally, Italian players tend to stay in Italy if they leave a club, but Buffon reportedly has indicated that he would be open to a move to England if the right opportunity arose. Finally, there were rumours a couple of years ago and even last summer that Arsenal had expressed some preliminary interest in Buffon that was rebuffed by Juve at the time–but the situation has changed since Buffon suffered his latest injury and Buffon’s dissatisfaction with the club was reported in the press.

Admittedly, I based my comments on Buffon on reports of what has appeared in the Italian sports media that have appeared on various English websites and news outlets. And, it must be further admitted that the Italian sporting press is nearly as inaccurate and sensationalistic as the Spanish press, so their reports have to be taken with a grain of salt. Similarly, the English media also tends to float a lot of transfer rumours that have no substance as well. However, the reports on Buffon’s unhappiness with Juve have been persistent enough for Fox Soccer Channel announcers to have also talked about the situation during the course of a broadcast of one of Juve’s matches recently.

While it might be a stretch to think that Buffon would consider coming to Arsenal for a couple of years, with the injuries that he has had, he surely must know that he probably can’t handle the full work-load of a # 1 keeper for a top-tier club and very well might find the prospect of closing out his career splitting time with a talented youngster at a club that can offer him Champions League football rather enticing. With a club like Arsenal competing in four different title competitions annually, Buffon could still play in plenty of big games and yet take some games off to rest and keep from being injured again.

I threw Buffon’s name out there as the type of keeper that I think that Wenger and Arsenal may well be looking for this offseason if Lehmann leaves. And, it’s not out of the realm of possibility: that’s precisely the kind of arrangement that Arsenal had with Schwarzer if they could have made a deal with Fulham. I don’t know every aging quality GK’s name. Buffon, Lehmann, Friedel (I should have thought of him), etc., etc., it doesn’t matter as long as the guy that the club brings in is someone who knows how to command a defense and can (and is willing to) teach that to Szczesny.

My main point was that Szczesny has shown enough already, in limited first-team playing time, to make it clear that he has the talent to become a very good, potentially top-tier GK in the very near future. I believe that Wenger and his staff have seen that and are not going to bring in a young keeper in his prime, like Lloris or Stecklenberg, who will block Szczesny’s progress and force him to leave the club. They’re just not going to do it and it’s not necessary.

What Szczesny lacks are experience and things that he appears to have the temperment to correct. What am I talking about? I don’t know if any of you can appreciate what it is like for a 19-20 year old to be in a lockerroom with older, veteran teammates, some of whom are married and have kids already, who have been playing at the highest level for 4-5 years or more. No matter how self-confident you are, you defer to them, even if you have other guys on the team who are closer to your own age that you know and have played with before. You are the “rookie”, the “kid” and, while they all know that you’re there to help the team win, you’re also “taking food off of someone’s table” or a friend of someone’s table in that lockerroom. Until you get yourself established and do enough in games to get most of the veterans on the team to appreciate why you are there, you tread lightly, no matter how much you believe in yourself–both on the pitch and in the lockerroom.

It takes a little while (and often the help of some friendly veterans) before a young player, especially someone who plays a position like keeper, is going to be comfortable enough with asserting himself to take command of his older teammates. That doesn’t mean that it’s never going to happen. It comes with experience being in the lockerroom and on the pitch with your teammates. And, the self-confidence to ultimately take control and begin to command.

Szczesny has the self-confidence and you can see that he has the presence necessary to get his teammates’ attention. He has also bounced back from his gaffe in the Birmingham game to make some big plays (he needs to bounce back again from the last two matches now) that you could see got the attention of some of his teammates. But, at the moment, he’s still not commanding them. He needs to be told or shown how to do that and learn what it takes to do it. That’s something that an experienced, older head can help him with if he is willing to listen and learn. If he doesn’t get that help, it will be up to him to figure it out on his own and, then, he may or may not ever “get it”: Almunia is an example of a guy who certainly hasn’t.

I’m not “blowing smoke” (or smoking blow) when I say that this is where Szczesny is at and that he can get through it: long ago in a land far away, I was in the same position (as a GK as well) that Szczesny is in, but in a different sport–a 19 year old who joined a veteran team in mid-season. It isn’t easy. But, I also see him having the presence and self-confidence needed to do what he needs to do to become a superb keeper and team leader. He just needs a little time, and some experience. A helping hand from an older GK who has gone through it all and knows how to command a defense would speed up the process for him and be a big help all around–it doesn’t matter who it is, just that it’s someone who knows what he’s talking about that Szczesny can respect and that Szczesny is willing to listen to him and learn. It doesn’t have to take that long–possibly just a season or less under the right conditions.

I know what the expectations of Arsenal fans are and that the club needs a top-flight keeper ASAP. But, in my opinion, it would be a big mistake to give up on a kid (and he’s still a kid!) as talented as Szczesny–which is what the club would be doing if it brought in another young GK (and guys like Lloris or Stecklenberg are not going to come to Arsenal unless they are pretty much guaranteed that they will be the # 1 keeper for the length of their contract, 4-5 years). It makes more sense to bring in a older keeper who can take some of the pressure off of Szczesny, perhaps by playing some of the bigger matches initially, and teach those things he needs to learn to achieve his great potential. The biggest of those things being, in my opinion, taking command of the defense, so that he doesn’t have to take the kind of risks like the one that resulted in the penalty that allowed Tottenham to tie the match at White Hart Lane in order to bail out his teammates for not doing their jobs properly. If he learns how to command the defense, Szczesny has the ability to be a great keeper for years. I think Arsenal fans need to be a little patient with him and management needs to go out and get an older keeper who can still play well to be Szczesny’s mentor for a couple of years (with the transition to Szczesny taking on the bulk of the playing time coming after a year of splitting time).

I don’t expect everyone to agree with my opinion, but I would hope that most Arsenal fans know enough about football and professional sports in general to give it a fair reading and respond with the kind of insightful comments that some have posted here. Your thoughts and feedback are very important to me, not only as a writer, but particularly as an Arsenal fan. So, thanks for posting them!