Wojciech Szczesny says he loves the pressure of playing for Arsenal and that the team are impatient to bring success to the Emirates.
In a very interesting and wide-ranging interview with Amy Lawrence, the Polish keeper spoke about how the team struggle to take training ground form into games, the lack of trophies, his part in that and his desire to give something back to the club which gave him a chance at the top level.
“People talk about pressure in football but I don’t think pressure should always affect you in a bad way,” he said. “I love games under pressure. The players are impatient. We really want to win a trophy. The fans are understandably impatient, because we should be doing much better than we have been.
“Very often, when we go on the football pitch, I feel like if we don’t score four goals in the first 15 minutes people start being a little bit hesitant. Sometimes you hear boos in the crowd, although that’s a different story.
“You get that kind of atmopshere where some people feel under a little bit too much pressure. But I don’t feel pressure should paralyse you. It should make you even better if anything. It’s hard to explain.”
Szczesny admitted that his mistake in the Carling Cup final against Birmingham was ‘painful’, but has thanked Arsene Wenger for sticking with him.
“I’m 22. I’ve won nothing in football. Literally nothing. The only trophy I have won was the Emirates Cup and that is not exactly enough, is it? The manager does stick with me when I have ups and downs with my form.
“That’s what you get at this age. He shows a lot of faith in me and sticks with me all the time but I am trying to improve. I love this place. I feel I have something I want to give back to them. It gives me a lot of desire to do well.”
It is worth bearing in mind that 22 in extremely young in the career of a goalkeeper, and while Szczesny certainly has the potential to be a very good player making mistakes is part of the learning process of a player in his position.
It’s when you see a 30-something keeper flapping around and charging about like a discombobulated rhino that you know you’re in trouble.
Arseblog News reckons we’re going to be in safe hand with Wojciech, that you should read the rest of the interview here and if you’re not following Amy Lawrence on Twitter you should be.
good lad, won us three points at anfield last season, same again weds night please
I remember when we were crying out for a goalkeeper-we had Almunia between the sticks and Fabianski (bless him) as back-up. Dark days. And then this gangly Pole with a name that made commentators everywhere shit themselves comes in and quietly but ruthlessly asserts himself into the first team. He’s not the finished article by any means, but goalkeeper is a position which no longer seriously worries me as a fan, albeit we could do with a more solid back-up. One of those glorious occasions when Arsene’s faith was rewarded. Good on ya, Wojciech!
Well said. Goalkeepers don’t seem as ‘solid’ as they used to, Cech, De Gea, Given and the rest of them have all had shocking howlers in thier time but more now than ever. Is it better attackers like Wenger says? Lighter balls? or just a big bright spotlight on every performance and things holding more weight than they need to!!!
Szczesny has got all the ingredients, unfortunately gaining experience is a waiting game, one which no one can cheat!
SZCZ will always be one of my favorites at the Arsenal. Only seems to have positive things to say. He’s a unifying force in the team for sure.
Didn’t you win the fourth place trophy last season mate .
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I had NOT heard that one before. Fair play 😉
It will never get old, never .
We came third last season, sadly pipped to 4th by sp*rs on the last day of the season 🙁
So glad we have Wojciech. The lad’s only 22. He’s hungry and he seems loyal.
I wish him the best and I’m sure he will win many things with Arsenal. I can definitely seem him becoming a legend here.
Spot on about the defenseI think there is definitely scope for improvement in our defense as far as players are concerned but we shouldn’t be conceding so many goals with the defenders we have.Lack of leadership is one reason.He talks about the Chelsea.For the whole first 45 minutes we were under the cosh,struggling badly,Chelsea cutting us open at ease.And we changed nothing.We did well after half time but why didn’t the players take more responsibility in that first half?
they are not “the chelsea” – they are just chelsea.
we are “the arsenal”.
Oh sorry.Meant to type ‘the chelsea match’.
that makes more sense 🙂
[…] Read More Here: Szczesny ‘impatient’ for success and Arsenal payback […]
Possibly the the most underated GK in the league?? Class shot stopper too
You mean overrated.
http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/scaled/371×498/jan_13/zp_160429598_SM_6082_8_9B8ABE7_6382.jpg?ic=17b3d3T
LANS ALERT!
Calm down, he’s only doing his coaching badges… I hope!
http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/scaled/498×387/jan_13/zp_160429598_SM_9238_0_9B8ABF2_7629.jpg?ic=5eae95T
Unrelated but that picture makes me think future Captain & Vice Captain.
He’s going to make mistakes just as any keeper does. He’s only human. De Gea at Utd gets quite a bit of stick too for the odd mistake but in 5 years time these guys could very likely be the best two keepers in the world.
He might have an easier time of it if there was no poxy zonal marking in front of him letting opposition players run about freely in our box from every set play.
He’s a better bloody ‘keeper than De Gea.
Both are great shot stoppers, but SZCZ commands his area and happily gets stuck into a rufty-tufty 6 yard box melee to punch the thing.
De Gea has all the physical presence you’d expect of a long streak of piss.
Both make the odd error, but De Gea has a fundamental flaw in his game.
I just hope for your sake that, you are world’s best goal keeping coach to find fundamental flaws in De Geas goal keeping.
he will be a top, top, top goalie n he’s loyal too.
To be honest, Szczesny was hardly at fault for Birmingham’s winner in the Carling Cup. He thought Kos was going to clear the ball, Kos acted like he was going to, then at the very last moment pulled out when he should have just cleared it. Maybe communication could have been better but if he was going to pull out, he should have done it sooner.
I don’t get why everyone seems to think Kos and Szcz were equally at fault.
yeah, pulling out at the last moment is never a good idea 🙂
Keep up the sharp distribution Woijcech! Nice “assist-to-the-assist” for the Szchezny=>Wilshere=>Poldi=>Giroud goal #5 vs. West ham!
Yeah thats a thing, the big critisicm SCSZ used to face was his distribution, an how awful it was. Surley the fact that bitching now stoped shows how rapidly the boy has potential to improve. I think he’ll do just fine, however and I’m probably sacrificing any possible thumbs up here, he’ll probably need a new manager. I don’t think Wengers going to change so he’ll always be left exposed as he says in the article and the set peice organisation and decision making, his current weakness, won’t improve while Wenger remains. Or stays as he is, I’ll be the… Read more »
His throwing has always been alright, his kicking has however gone from absolutely dire to only awful, so some improvement there, I’ll give you that.
Frankly though, he catches the ball (usually) and only tends to make one mistake a month, that is a massive step up from our last few keepers.
And don’t forget the first goal against Brighton. The boy might be getting better at this distribution thing, which would be nice since we seem to be pretty good on the counterattack.
Damnit your name has just ruined me for ever listening to that guy again. LOL
penalty saves he’s given to make sure we had a chance to win vs Bradford, only for tv to clank the post….
Every minute Szczesny spends talking or tweeting is a minute he should be working on his kicking game. His shot stoping abilities are command able but every other aspect of his game needs major improvement .Atsenal haven’t had a world class keeper since David Seaman and that’s why they haven’t won anything in 7 seasons. Sticking with young talent has been Wenger’s trademark but the back line and between the pipes are wrong places to do it.
He’s not on Twitter. I also don’t see the problem with him giving an interview outside of training time.
You have some ridiculous goalkeeper expectations if you don’t count jens lehman as world class…
Tom, what the hell are you doing writing a post at 3.40pm? You should be bettering yourself somewhere.
Sign the ting wojtech!! Or something
Ofcourse Wenger stuck with him, look at the other fucking options…
lol…
there is some definite ” funny coments of the year” competition happening on this blog here.