Arsenal: Just think, Bernd Leno has a whole season up next

Arsenal’s keeper situation was fixed in a big way with the arrival of Bernd Leno, and just think what he can do with a full season at the back.

It’s crazy to think about how Bernd Leno wasn’t even the Arsenal No. 1 when we started the season. It was still Petr Cech‘s job to lose. And I wonder what would have happened if Cech wouldn’t have gotten injured against Watford. Would he have stayed on as the No. 1 until some drastic mistake?

It’s an important distinction, because Leno really did save us a lot of points this year. And I wonder if Cech would have done the same, or if he would have been good, but not great, and maybe not saved us quite as many points as we needed.

Impossible to say. But just reminding myself that Leno didn’t have a full season makes me even more excited for what next season has in store, assuming he follows the same upward trajectory that he’s been on all year.

And why wouldn’t he?

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The one thing that gives me the slightest smidgin of concern is that after his big year at Bayer Leverkusen, he gradually declined over the next two years before joining us. But even with that knowledge, there’s no reason to expect that he would follow a similar trend.

Mostly because he had to acclimate last year and get used to his new charge, which, once he did, it became a steady burner. He was as reliable as can be, barring the occasional horror show, but by occasional, I don’t mean Shkodran Mustafi occasional. It was like, once in three months.

All that said, Leno still missed the first several weeks of the Premier League season sitting behind Cech and he had a couple months of struggling to find himself as well, and those are weeks where he might have been able to save us more points if he had been in the form that he finished the season in.

Which leads to my point: Next year will be a full year of Leno saving us points. Even if he isn’t in hero mode all year long, he’s still the kind of keeper that can keep a steady reliability all throughout the season and at least we know that the acclimation is complete.

Just another thing to look forward to. Sometimes we get so caught up thinking about the weaknesses that we don’t take a moment to appreciate the strengths, subtle though they be. And goalkeeping is definitely a strength, thanks to Leno.