Arsenal: Bernd Leno acclimation betrays how good he really is

Arsenal needed a keeper solution after last season, and they turned to Bern Leno. Chalk that up as a fantastic decision, as we can all clearly see now.

While defense has been a major problem for Arsenal in recent years, that festering infection has spread to keeper as well. Last season, Petr Cech committed more errors leading to goals than ever before, his ball-handling was atrocious, it just wasn’t a good fit anymore, but with only David Ospina to challenge him, we were stranded.

Seeing Wojciech Szczesny holding down arguably the best defense in the world at Juventus wasn’t much of a boost either, knowing that his fantastic capabilities could still be put to use at the Emirates if we’d been smarter about it.

But Szczesny was the victim of a bad back line, as Bernd Leno was when he first arrived this year, the messiah to an aching keeper situation. He was coming off of several years of let down after his initial breakthrough at Bayer Leverkusen that earned him the dubious honor of being “the next Manuel Neuer.”

Leno fell into the same problem that Szczesny did. he was left stranded by a poor defense, a place that I called Leno Island, and when you’re by yourself against a striker, or a deadly situation, most Premier League caliber players are going to beat you.

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And for the most part, they did.

Yet here we are in March and Bernd Leno has taken home the player of the month award for his fantastic output in all of two matches, but still, those were two matches that were literally ripped out of the dirt by his fantastic abilities, not just with making saves, which apparently isn’t that special anymore, but with decision making, sometimes of a Neuer-esque variety, rushing out of goal to beat an opposing striker to the ball well outside of the goal box (see Manchester United).

Leno has highlighted the differences between the Bundesliga and the Premier League, saying that for the English variety, it’s 95 hard minutes, whereas in Germany, if you have a multiple goal lead, it’s over.

It’s apparent how true this is by how many late goals have snuck into the Arsenal net to prevent a clean sheet, even if it’s a meaningless goal.

But Leno has learned, and he has improved, and he has gotten better to the point that it looks like the acclimation period is already over, and not even a full season into his tenure at his new digs. I like that.