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Wojciech Szczesny Facing Biggest Arsenal Match of his Career Against Brighton
By Josh Sippie
Brighton and Hove Albion may not sound like much on paper, but there has never been a bigger game for the out-of-favor Arsenal keeper, Wojciech Szczesny. But how out of favor is he really?
After Szczesny’s disciplinary (or whatever) benching, replacement David Ospina has yet to give up a goal. As such Szczesny has found himself firmly planted on the bench, a place that he is clearly not too fond of.
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Szczesny is the reigning co-golden gloves winner, but one bad game at Southampton and a cigarette later and he’s the villain of North London. Such a quick transition baffles me to bits, but as Arsene Wenger has been incredibly mum on the subject, all we can do is speculate, and there’s been plenty of that to go around.
Rumors have been piling up as far as a search for a replacement goal keeper. Mattia Perin of Genoa and Petr Cech of rival Chelsea have had their names tossed around as “replacements” when it’s not even a sure thing that Wenger seeks to replace his Pole in goal.
Now, Neto is being linked to the Emirates (according to the Metro, but don’t believe all that rubbish about Wenger trying to ship off Szczesny).
All Wenger can tells us is that Szczesny is not being held out because of the cigarette.
Strangely enough, I believe him.
What’s keeping Szczesny out of goal is Opsina, who has yet to surrender a goal since taking over. Granted, he hasn’t had too terribly much to do, clean sheets are clean sheets.
As such, Szczesny has the biggest test of his career coming up against Brighton. If he surrenders a goal, he may very well see all progress towards first team action severely damaged.
While I still believe that Szczesny is the best keeper on this team, Wenger is doing nothing wrong by staring the in-form keeper Ospina. We know how much of a competitor Szczesny is, so hopefully he’s using this as fuel to better himself and not just sulking.
Whatever the case, he knows what’s at stake in the Sunday clash, and we’ll see what he does with it.
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