Arsenal: Bernd Leno ‘spill’ hardly worth losing sleep over

Arsenal’s first hiccup of the preseason hasn’t hit the fan yet, but it shouldn’t. Bernd Leno is a quality keeper, this isn’t the norm.

Arsenal‘s preseason was going rather nicely. Two friendlies amounted to two wins with a combined score of 17-0. That’s something to be excited about, even if it is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme.

It is not an indication of much other than the Gunners passion of turning over this new leaf, so it’s not like it’s something to go making fun of Tottenham fans for or anything (there’s plenty of other fuel for that).

In the same way that those massive wins should be taken with a salt, so too should the most recent defeat to Brentford by a score of 2-1.

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In what was literally the first hiccup of the season, the Gunners fell in a closed-door friendly, with Bernd Leno being the prime reason for the loss. According to the recap, he spilled a cross that gave up the winning goal.

Cue the shock and awe right? Cue the “sell him” chants and the calls for another keeper? Well, not entirely, although I’m not opposed to seeing Yann Sommer join up. In fact, I’d be rather enthused if he did.

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But that’s not the point. Promisingly, fans have not started any sort of protesting cry against the German keeper, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to nip any concern in the bud before it started. Because whether we want to or not, something like this is always going to kick up dust that doesn’t need any kicking up.

To add some context, Leno has made less mistakes in the past two seasons than Cech made last year alone.

I’m not going to sit here and say that Leno is never going to make a mistake. Of course he will. But I will sit here and say a spilled cross against Brentford in July does not equate to points lost in the Premier League race in April.

Until we see him in actual, meaningful action, I’m not going to throw any stones. Not least of all because he is a proven product. He accepted a promotion to move from Bayer Leverkusen to the Emirates, and undeserving players rarely get promotions.

Leno is going to be just fine and, by extension, the club will be too. And if he spills a cross or two, well, then we have Cech (or Sommer?) to turn to.

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In the end, as long as he improves on this club’s fortunes from last year, we are fine.