Why Is Wojciech Szczesny Being Run out of Town at Arsenal?

Wojciech Szczesny had all the potential in the world at Arsenal. He was an up-and-coming Polish goalkeeper that was great in the air, excellent at reading crosses and his reflexes were top notch. But he struggled some with decision making. It was all part of the learning process.

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However, it all seemed to come together last year when he shared the golden gloves award with Joe Hart, proving that he was top of the Premier League as far as keepers were concerned.

Now, Szczesny finds himself confined to the Arsenal bench behind the emergence of David Ospina. Wojciech Szczesny has had a rough 2014/15 season, but how much of it can we pin directly on him? Sure, he was almost entirely responsible for the Southampton embarrassment, but prior to that, he was the victim of some seriously shoddy defense. He never knew who was going to be lining up in front of him on the defensive line and errors continued to leave him in unenviable situations that he just couldn’t do anything with.

But he was still the reigning gold gloves holder. And many Arsenal supporters will recall a similar down-spell by Jans Lehmann following the Invincible season.

Why can’t Wojciech Szczesny do the same? I find it mildly upsetting that Arsene Wenger is seemingly done with the Pole and ready to waste 10 million pounds on Petr Cech.

Yes, I said waste.

Cech is 32 years old and could give Arsenal a couple of good years, but the necessity of a new goal keeper continues to be lost on me. Consider this table for a second. In it, I pitted the Wojciech Szczesny and Petr Cech of last year against the Thibaut Courtois, Joe Hart and David Ospina of this year. All the stats are on a per 90 minute basis (via Squawka.com):

[table id=32 /]

As you can see, if we can get a return to form by Wojciech Szczesny and maintain form for David Ospina, we already have two of the best keepers in the league. And as long as we maintain a healthy and consistent defense, those two objectives shouldn’t be hard to achieve.

Petr Cech is a great keeper. But we don’t need him. Only one keeper gets consistent playtime, the others just bide their time waiting for a slip-up. Ospina hasn’t slipped up and if he does, Wojciech Szczesny has been chomping at the bit to prove himself again, and no matter what you might hear, Szczesny is still a quality keeper with the potential to be world class.

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The Metro is reporting that Arsenal and Wojciech Szczesny are having talks over his frustrating situation, and who can blame them? Szczesny believes in himself, he knows what he’s capable of, and the Petr Cech rumors have to be somewhat infuriating to him.

Arsenal have a good situation at goal keeper. They have two highly competitive keepers that want the No. 1 spot. They don’t need to spend 10 of their 50 million pounds this summer on another aging keeper. These past few weeks have shown that, with a solid defense, Arsenal can beat anybody. Szczesny was at the back in the Manchester United FA Cup match and we won that game, albeit he didn’t have terribly much to do.

Wenger can find so many more important things to spend money on. We don’t need another keeper.

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