Arsenal: Shot stopping was never Bernd Leno’s problem

Bernd Leno made a string of excellent saves in Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Southampton on Sunday. The hesitancies regarding his quality, though, are not because of his shot-stopping ability.

In the end, Arsenal ran out comfortable victors over Southampton on Sunday afternoon. The 2-0 win was the second in three days and showcased some of the best football that they have played all season long. But if not for one Bernd Leno, the whole waltz past the relegation stragglers could have been a whole lot different.

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Leno made a string of excellent saves throughout the match to ferociously defend his second clean sheet in two games, something that he and his teammates have struggled to achieve this year — the Gunners have just five clean sheets all year in the Premier League, 15th best in the division, with Leno recording three of them.

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The best came just minutes into the match. Nathan Redmond raced through on goal in behind an open and overly high Arsenal defence. Leno positioned himself well, pushing the Saints attacker wide at first, and then backtracked. Redmond’s dribble wide allowed Shkodran Mustafi to recover somewhat, and then, when he cut inside the sliding German, Leno lurched forward at his feet, spreading his body as wide as possible, covering the angle of the shot and blocking the ball clear. All in all, Leno made four saves and was absolutely integral to the victory.

In the aftermath of the victory, the German goalkeeper has rightly been receiving praise for his performance. Many have argued that this was his best display of the season, and I would tend to agree with them, with his distribution also far more accurate as he passed the ball forwards rather than aimlessly clearing up to an isolate centre-forward.

However, Leno’s shot-stopping ability was never the thing that caused people to hesitate when Arsenal splashed £20 million on his services in the summer. He has always been a good shot stopper. Very few suggested that he would not be good at making a high volume of saves in England.

His weaknesses lie in his consistency, the number of mind-numbing mistakes that he makes, his odd positioning from crosses and his vulnerabilities at dealing with high balls, especially from set pieces. And these weaknesses in his game have been evident at times this season, especially earlier on.

This is not to slam Leno. I think he is a good goalkeeper who certainly deserves more time to acclimate and grow. He has played well and is playing better as time goes by. I hope that he will have a long and illustrious career at the Emirates. But let’s not pretend that because he made a few excellent saves on Sunday that these weaknesses have just magically disappeared. They haven’t.

Hopefully Leno can continue to learn and develop, as he has done this season. He is only 26 years of age and has never played in English football prior to this campaign. There is still plenty of room to grow. And as he does this, let’s hope that his shot-stopping skills do not wane, because, as Sunday proved, they are his real diamond.