Arsenal: Don’t lose track of Bernd Leno’s incredible value

Arsenal had a lot of questions that needed answering last summer, and same this summer, but don’t lost track of Bernd Leno’s importance.

Last summer, Arsenal had some pretty obvious needs. They needed help on defense. They needed help in the midfield. They needed help on the wings. They needed help in goal. These were the big question marks and, to the new regime’s credit, they answered all but one of them the best that they could.

Winger still went unanswered, but they contributed a good deal to every other position. Midfield looks solved. Defense isn’t. Winger isn’t. But keeper? Keeper is. And it didn’t seem like it was going to be for awhile.

Bernd Leno had to earn the starting job from Petr Cech but, more importantly, he had to keep it. That was not going to be an easy task, when considering that he was playing behind a flimsy defense, the same kind of flimsy defense that got Wojciech Szcesny sold off to Juventus because we couldn’t properly judge how good he actually was.

This season, Leno has grown into the role in a big way. He faced a lot of the same problems that Szczesny faced, where he was left on what I dubbed “Leno Island” far too often, but those goals, whether they were his fault or not, reflected poorly on him when he wasn’t making any saves either.

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As time went on, fans began to clamor for him to be a difference maker, to actually save us points and, lo and behold, he answered. In several matches, Southampton for instance, Leno was the guy who kept the Gunners with max points. Nobody else.

He’s been a fantastic addition and a clear solution to out keeper problems such that I couldn’t care less what happens at our No. 2 keeper position because I have complete faith in Leno.

Give him a good defense, or just a defense without Shkodran Musrtafi for starters, and you will start to see more clean sheets, less need for heroics, but still a propensity for it when called upon.

That is a big solution to be able to count on, especially in a transitional period. Because if we were still unsure about our keeper situation going into this summer, there would be a hell of a lot more stress about this whole set-up.

Now, it’s clear cut. Put a good defense in front of Leno and don’t worry about anything else.