Arsenal: Bernd Leno does one thing Arsene Wenger never could

Arsenal are set to spend £19.2 million on Bayer Leverkusen goalkeeper Bernd Leno. The German represents the one that Arsene Wenger never could do: truly attempt to solve the goalkeeping position.

Unai Emery is set to splash a rather large portion of his reported £50 million budget on a goalkeeper. Some would suggest that it is not the wisest of investments. After all, how much impact does a goalkeeper actually have on a match? But perhaps Arsenal’s history tells a different story between the sticks.

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Throughout Arsene Wenger’s tenure, the goalkeeping position often felt like an afterthought. He inherited David Seaman, arguably the club’s greatest ever goalkeeper. He then replaced him with Jens Lehmann, who was perfectly adept, if a little mad. But since that time, the Gunners have waded through a mire of wholly unconvincing of prospects.

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Manuel Almunia. Lukasz Fabianski. Wojciech Szczesny. Emiliano Martinez. David Ospina. Petr Cech. None have been consistently good enough to convince the club that they are the answer to a problem that has undermined the team for more than a decade. And it seemed as if Wenger didn’t really care about it. It wasn’t until 2015 and the £12 million signing of Cech that he really threw his weight behind a genuinely viable solution.

Prior to the Cech addition, Wenger had never spent more than £10 million on a goalkeeper. The most expensive signing at the position was Richard Wright for £8 million in 2001. He would make only 12 appearances for the club. No other keeper under Wenger cost more than £5 million — the next most expensive were Almunia, Fabianski, and Ospina, coming in at £4.5 million, £4 million and £3.5 million respectively.

It is no coincidence that in the first summer that Wenger is not at the club, Arsenal have pushed hard to sign a goalkeeper for a significant fee, that goalkeeper being Bernd Leno and the fee being £19.2 million, according to this Guardian report.

There is certainly an argument to be made that Leno is not actually the solution to the goalkeeping troubles of last season. He has made several individual errors and has not developed from the incredibly bright prospect that he was when he broke into the Bayer Leverkusen first team at the tender age of only 19. But at least the club is being attentive to the position.

One thing that you cannot take away from the deal is that it shows a clear intention to solve what has been a problem position for many, many years. Where Wenger shunned it into the shadows and naively hoped for a solution to appear, Emery and Sven Mislintat have been proactive in trying to find one.

Next: Arsenal: 3 consequences from Bernd Leno signing

It remains to be seen whether they have been successful in their search, but Bernd Leno represents the one that Wenger never did do: a genuine attempt at a goalkeeping solution.