Arsenal: Can we please stop talking about keepers now?

Petr Cech is retiring from Arsenal, and that’s just fine, but spending all this time pursuing and talking about back-ups has become a pain in the arse.

Literally the only position at Arsenal that I haven’t been thinking about constantly since the season ended is keeper. Bernd Leno is a stud. He can take us as high as we need to go. Done deal. Happy times.

But there are so many tedious headlines about the Gunners pursuing this keeper and that, and oh, David Ospina is still here and, oh what about getting a really good keeper to challenge Leno and oh… oh… stop it. There are way to many things to be worrying about this summer without having to pointlessly stress over who the back-up keeper is going to be. Because that’s all it’s going to amount to, back-up duties.

Those midweek competitions that, while important, pale in comparison to the Premier League, which Leno has more than covered.

Recently, all this annoying talk has been put to bed – hopefully. Unai Emery supposedly decided to give Emi Martinez the shot he’s been hoping for. He’ll slot in as the Cup keeper, where he belongs.

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This was a big summer for Martinez, because he made it clear that if this didn’t happen, he would leave. Plain and simple. And at 26-years-old, it all made sense. He needs to be seeing consistent game time, not jumping around from loan to loan.

That means, with Martinez slotting in as the No. 2, that we can move on to more important things and stop filling the headlines with rumors of transfers for all the keepers we don’t need.

Oh but wait. There was also the David Ospina situation, with him still being on our books despite spending a year-long loan at Napoli. But thankfully, that appears to be over as well, with a £3m agreement being reached for a permanent move.

With all this behind us, we can start talking about more important things, like who is going to stand in front of Leno and Martinez and not leave them isolated/completely screwed.

It is nice though, not having to think about the keeper situation. Leno has been a blessing since arriving and it feels good to be able to conclusively say that I have no concerns whatsoever in his ability to anchor this team, no matter the opposition. The man saved us a lot of points last season, and he’ll do the same going forward.