Arsenal number one goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny is running out of time at Arsenal as he comes under pressure for his starting place from David Ospina.
“We must give credit to their keeper today. “said Arsene Wenger when speaking about Southampton’s Fraser Forster following the Gunners 2-0 loss in which his keeper Szczesny was responsible for conceding both goals.
“In our final third we didn’t defend well,” added Wenger. “We were quite in control of the game and we gave it away, it’s as simple as that. It’s disappointing because the team gave a lot, but you cannot afford these kind of mistakes at our level.”
Even Arsenal fans are beginning to question the Polish keepers focus with only Everton making more mistakes that have led to goals this season.
Usually it is the Gunners defence that takes the brunt of any criticism with a lack of a holding midfielder often blamed, yet not having a last line of defence in nets is a troubling worry that does not bode well going forward.
The loss at St Mary’s was the first time this season the Gunners boss was able to start his preferred back-four only to see it undermined by a poor performance from Szczesny.
You only have to look at Manchester United and their keeper David De Gea who has single handily won games for the Red Devils that has them on a run of eleven games unbeaten.
If you look at the statistics off the top six team’s keepers, Szczesny leads them all in errors.
While you might expect keepers to make mistakes as they get used to playing in England’s top-flight Szczesny is now 24-years-old, older than both Manchester United’s David De Gea and Chelsea’s Thibaut Courtois, and has played more than 200 games.
If you look how well De Gea has developed at United it does not reflect well on Szczesny with the young Spaniard overcoming what goalkeeper coach Eric Steel called “laziness” to develop into a world-class keeper that Real Madrid consider good enough to replace veteran Iker Casillas.
Reports that the Polish shot stopper was caught smoking in the showers after the Southampton match will not go down well with Wenger either given his comments on players smoking.
26-year-old Colombian international David Ospina was signed in the summer by Arsenal and played for the dropped Szczesny against Hull City keeping a clean sheet which will give Wenger the confidence to continue to pick him over Szczesny.
Sunday’s match against Stoke City will decide which way Wenger wants to go and the Frenchman may well have to eat his words of support for Szczesny over the summer.
“You know at the start Szczesny will be the No 1,” said Wenger in July. “Then, again, we’ll be down to performances and, if Ospina shows that he is better, he will play.”
Now six months on from those words we will see what decision Wenger decides to make.
