Arsenal: Bernd Leno still a points saver after Wolverhampton

Bernd Leno did not have fun against Wolverhampton as he and Arsenal fell flat on their faces, but he’s still a clear points saver.

Arsenal‘s match against Wolverhampton was pathetic at best, and of all the guilty parties, Bernd Leno has to be among the guiltiest. Two of the goals were directly his fault, one involving incredibly poor decision making and the other surprisingly bad shot-stopping.

Which sucks. Because you factor out those two goals and it’s 1-1, the game changes. But we don’t want to think like that.

Criticism has been pretty fair to Leno, and I’m happy to see that most fans understand that one bad game is not going to upset how amazing Bernd Leno has been this year, especially when compared to what we had prior to his arrival. And especially considering what it’s like to play behind such a poor defense.

That said, let’s say you wanted to go off the deep end and say that Leno cost us two points here. Not saying I agree with that, but worst case scenario, let’s say he did. He is still so far in the positive in terms of points gained that I have zero worries that he will finish the season well into the green.

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When he struggled to settle in during the early parts of the season, fans called for him to make a difference, to save us points, and he answered in a huge way. Southampton comes to mind just off the top of my head, but Manchester United, Tottenham, Watford and more have shown us that Leno is a difference maker, has saved us more points than he cost us, and this is all assuming you still want to count Wolverhampton as two points that he cost us. Which let me again urge you away from doing.

Leno is in a very Wojciech Szczesny situation where the individual talent of the keeper himself should not be questioned so much as the state of the club as a whole. Just like Szczesny, Leno is often hung out to dry, which was surprising given the starting XI against Wolverhampton, but it happened nonetheless.

Still, mistakes are human and so is Leno. I’ll spot him to occasional poor match if it means that he can go months looking like how he looked between about January and, well, yesterday.

It sucks that it came when it did, but it doesn’t diminish his value at all.