I feel Fabianski is a good goalkeeper but is too error-prone to warrant the number 1 shirt. A few games last season, and the season before (Wigan), make me think that he won’t be seen to often next season. Undoubtedly, he is a good shot-stopper, but his positioning is far too poor for my liking, and I don’t think he can come and claim a ball, or catch a cross to well, whereas Szczesny can.
I definitely think that Manuel Almunia is our weak link in the squad. His time is surely up at the Emirates…he just isn’t good enough. The 34-year-old Spaniard has made too many mistakes over the years; Arsenal fans are simply tired of his tom foolery.
In my opinion, Almunia is a mid-table goalkeeper at best. I always think ‘Oh god’ whenever I see him on the team sheet. He doesn’t really seem to inspire the defenders, or communicate well with them. He actually worries me when he is in goal for us.
Anyway, to answer the question at hand – do we need an experienced pair of hands, or can we make do with the goalkeepers we’ve got? – Personally, I think we need to get another keeper on board, but who, that’s the question.
Almunia certainly needs to find another club. Manchester United reportedly replaced Edwin Van Der Sar with David De Gea, who is an excellent keeper in my view.
A keeper who I’d love to see at Arsenal is Shay Given.
The 35-year-old is an excellent shot-stopper who possesses excellent positional awareness, can claim a cross, communicates well with his defenders, and most importantly, has bags of experience under his belt. The Irishman would certainly relish the chance to play in the Champions League next season.
I feel the only thing that is stopping him from coming to Arsenal is the fact we can’t guarantee him first-team football, and it seems his preferred destinations is Celtic.
To be honest, I really can’t see any other goalkeeper coming to Arsenal this summer, so it looks like we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got.
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I think we need sign a new goalkeeper, zcscesny is young, he need continuous improving, we can sign stekelemburg, he is very good and he have experience
We need Man City’s given in goal he is expericed keeper just what we need at present provably he can play 2 seasons (may be more) at the top level and wouldnt be more than 5 millions. Loan Szczesny an that would give him the chance to inprove for 1 or 2 seasons just like Joe Hart did the previous season came back inproved for City. Just keep Fabiansk as second choice for now.
I think we do need to sign a keeper. Szczesny is very young and needs an experienced and quality goalkeeper to teach him. I pesronally would get Shay Given and make him our number 1 keeper. Given is 35 and in years years time he’ll be 40, By then Szczesny will be 25-26. Szezesny would have had a great learning experience from Given and would be a far superior keeper then what he is now.
sell Almunia and Fabianski and bring in Stekelenberg. Loan out Shea and Mannone making Martinez no.3 keeper, and Chezney no.2. To be fair keeper is not a priority this summer as we have much bigger fish to fry. Fabregas, Nasri, Bendtner and Clichy, DM and CH. These issues need to be addressed before we worry about keepers.
Love Chez’s attitude and obviously massive potential. One area that needs work but has been overlooked in the article/comments is his kicking – he lacks Consistency when it comes to achieving Distance when required. This is obvious. An older, wiser keeper is a must, and someone like that won’t be happy being a permanent number 2 (that’s a keeper coach’s function, so to speak), so if Given’s the choice target, Chez becomes our number 2, an apprentice still to a great keeper, and our own gate keeping pretender-to-the-throne.