The Press Association are reporting that Wojciech Szczesny has not been fined and dropped following his performance at Southampton, contrary to suggestions made on Danish television at the weekend by former Gunner John Jensen.
Working as part of the commentary team that covered yesterday’s victory over Hull City for channel 6’eren Jensen had claimed that the Pole’s behaviour in the dressing room after the defeat at Saint Mary’s, a match in which he made two serious mistakes, had so infuriated manager Arsene Wenger and assistant Steve Bould that there was a chance he might not play again this season.
Szczesny didn’t feature in the win over Hull, which was hardly a surprise given second choice keepers, in this case David Ospina, have regularly been deployed for cup competitions in recent years.
Szczesny won the Golden Glove award for the most clean sheets in the Premier League last season, shared with Chelsea’s Petr Cech, and has made 176 appearances for the Gunners since making his debut in 2009.
We wait to see who is between the sticks on Sunday when Stoke’s orcs visit the Emirates.
That’ll mean JJ is going to be in trouble with The Arsenal then, surely
Typical dane. Probably angry about TGSTEL leaving.
Heh. Former footballers being commentators? Selten a good idea…
Aren’t we all??
“Typical dane”? I’m from Denmark. And I’m glad that Bendtner left.
It seems a lot of people on here don’t want to see him play again this season if yesterday is anything to go by!
Yes ..
I hate the Arsenal community sometimes!!
Look SZC was downright awful against Southampton .. and cost us the game but in between those mistakes he also had some saves and was stellar against West-Ham but people are so f..ing fickle 1-2 bad games in a row and you are waist.
It’s like when Wilshere missed that chance against United and some of the fans on here were saying they were glad he got injured! Just makes me want to shake my head
And makes me want to kick their head
Compromise guys! Shake their bloody heads.
But Shezza didn’t make any mistakes yesterday
Could have slept in the goal yesterday!
To judge a goalkeeper, you look at the games his defenders are shit. The best goalkeepers can win games or a Point despite the defense being shit. Looking at last season when Szcz won the golden glove, he bottled it every game our defense was not there to save him. Not a matchwinner yet.
But still young, especially for a goalkeeper, so the best is yet to come.
This is my point when i critize szcz, he isnt only prone to have almunia moments, but he isnt a matchwinner goalkeeper. People that always bring the golden glove thing, forget that: 1. Cech injury 2. More than a goalkeeper stat, clean sheets is a defense stat, which bring me to point 3 3. Last season we were more compact on defense, shielding leads and (except some games, mostly agasinst “big clubs”) defended well. The moments where the defense crumbled, as you said, Szcz bottled it, so more than that, we kept enough clean sheets for our defense, and not… Read more »
I broke out in cold sweat when I read “Almunia moments”. Bad memories
Don’t be selective. Our Pol in goal made some big saves last season.
You r right, Cech was the better keeper of the two but Scz had a great season also. You say he didn’t save games for us? I remember he saved a string of like 3games in a row that we won by a 1goal margin and Per commented that it was his job to save us points. That post is somewhere here. Even though he’s let us down sometimes this season, only a few will deny that he was stellar last season
I can say the same about Almunia then, how he was actually a decent shoot stopper and i remember specially a game against Barcelona where he did a good job, but we all know how almunia ended. I just hope Szcz comes good with time, but right now he isnt AS GOOD as he and ppl think he is
Why ? Szczesny had a very very bad game like that game Éboué had one day. However, Szczesny is a talented shot stopper. He is not freshed, but later during the season Arsenal can use him. A striker can miss very very easy tap in and be starting XI all season. Goalkeeping is the toughest position of all. Arsenal cannot afford a player thay gives away three points like Szczesny did but he is like Lehman in terms of talent and errors but we were invincible with Lehman.
Erik Thorstvedt, former Scum, comes in as a pundit sometimes for the PL on Norwegian tv.
I remember he said something like; goalkeepers are called useless if they make one or two mistakes in a match. But what about the overpaid strikers who miss chance after chance, and no one barely raise an eyebrow?
That really pisses me off!
Ex Spud and all, but he was great for the national team, and praise Arsenal more than most other pundits on tv here.
Well, if the rumor is true, we wouldn’t be surprised. Arsene is a bit too tolerant for erring players. Its about time the Mgt got tough on avoidable errors, they cost us too many points.
Yeah had he not made mistakes against Southampton we would have won a game which we couldn’t score.
that’s not even a logic to go by. Big clubs play shit but don’t make silly errors, take one chance they get. But shambolic goalkeeping costing us points should not be accepted time and over again. Szczesny has been getting away with a lot of unwanted errors, it was bound to happen
People keep saying this. Honestly, the two mistakes in the Southampton game are the only ones I can remember for a long time. Can anyone remind me of any others?
I thought it was really only one mistake – the first goal. Debuchy was the one who fucked up for the second. That said, I’d like to see Ospina get a run and Chesney fight to get his place back.
Kos and Per were both at fault for the first one so surely if sczesny is to get fined (which sounds stupid in the first place) they all should get fined.
Do Sanchez and Cazorla get fined for the chances they should have put away in the Southampton game too?
Where would it stop? Sounds ludicrous to me.
I think this whole situation is being blown completely out of proportion. Sure Szczesny had a bad game but the whole defence deserved a bullocking for their combined performance. Szczesny made a bad decision with the first goal and forced into a difficult situation by Debuchy for the other. Apart from that Kos and Per just didn’t provide him with enough cover and it was inevitable that Southampton would score sooner or later. In fact a few decent stops from him kept the score at 2-0 rather than 5-0. That being said we strongly need to have squad rotation and… Read more »
Sorry, but it’s quite hard to believe that Wenger would bench a player for a season just because of one bad performance. If that were the case, we’d have the entire squad ‘suspended’ by our own choice and the rest out through injury! Bad performances happen, you just have to learn from them.
“… Jensen had claimed that the Pole’s behaviour in the dressing room after the defeat at Saint Mary’s…”
note: “his behaviour in the dressing room”, not the poor performance itself.
“Jensen had claimed that the Pole’s behaviour in the dressing room after the defeat at Saint Mary’s, a match in which he made two serious mistakes, had so infuriated manager Arsene Wenger and assistant Steve Bould that there was a chance he might not play again this season.”
Read again.
Sorry, I missed that subtlety. It would have had to be pretty awful in that case.
Call me crazy, but that’s not subtle.
My mind focused more on the ‘match in which he made two mistakes’ than the dressing room behavior, that’s all I meant.
But at no stage is it suggested that Wenger was going to punish Sczcesny for his mistakes on the pitch. That part of the sentence above was included by the writer, but is clearly not intended to suggest that it was part of what Wenger wanted to punish.
Its true that suspending a player for nearly half a season is harsh and a bit unbelievable, but you have to admit, Szczesney’s had more than one bad performance this season.
If true, the benching would be the result of a ‘bust up’ in the dressing room following the Southampton game… not simply a result of the two errors.
Me thinks it was Bould vs. Schzechny.. with the latter eventually roughing up (or outright punching) the former in response to crticism.
Surely if he punched Bould, wouldn’t we be reading his obituary, not rumours of a suspension?
The campaign for Chambers for goalie against Stoke starts (and ends) here
How about Ox though? Has some experience, great save vs Chelsea.. Also doesn’t get a red card himself like Szczesny often does..
I can’t really tell the difference between Poles and Ninja Turtles.
Or Ozil
I think Sanogo for goalkeeper. He’s 6ft 4inches and at a loose end.
At 24, Szcz is a good GK but he still needs to learn how to turn awful performances into average ones. He’s usually pretty decent but he makes them kind of mistakes from time to time that are hard to forget (red cards..).
He’s mature enough to know he had a poor game last week and I think Wenger will start him against Stoke.
Why play him when we have a good goalkeeper in Ospina.
Well to me I compare SzCz to his peers like DeGea and not establish players like Cech.
So far like most of our young/youngish players he’s realizing his potential. We’ll never know.
Players like Ox, Ramsey, young jack, SzCz should not be guaranteed a start and should really fight to justify their inclusion along the likes of Arteta, Kos, Sanchez, Rosicky for it.
Did no one else read the bit about his alleged behaviour? That is far more troubling than a temporary lapse in form.
I wonder how did Jensen know what happened in the Saint Mary’s dressing room.
Friends with Steve Bould. Apparently.
And Bould, as Wenger’s right hand man, goes about whispering dressing rooming secrets to all previous gooners: ‘Psst Johnny, you’ll never guess what happened this weekend!’
Is Jensen the danish Stewart Robson?
He didnt ‘know’ and shouldn’t gossip, tosser…
Sczcesney is always so damn eager to get off his line and do shit and the amount of times he has stupidly rushed out has cost us alot.
Will never be a Neuer, but unfortunately tries to play like him.
I’m not saying that Sczc would ever be the player Neuer is, but i would say that you don’t know anything about neuer, when he was Sczc age he made the same mistakes very often, even the first couple of years when he signed for bayern he made similar mistakes like sczd does and was dropped several times for Hans-Jörg Butt at the time.
His ‘Neuers’ hasn’t exactly cost us ‘alot’. He usually gets away with it, albiet you get nervous every time and therfore remember it as bad decision. Southampton was obviously very bad, but if you look at his mistakes during his career, coming off his line is usually not where the mistakes happen.
I would still drop him for Stoke and a few more games after that in order to get a reaction out of him. Seemed to work the last time he was benched (which was for Fabianski in 2013). Still have a big long term doubts over him though. His distribution and decision making when vacating his 5 yard box is still poor and he hasnt really showed any signs of improvements in those two areas. Yes he won golden glove last season but that was in mainly due to the excellent form merts and kos showed in front of him… Read more »
Fuck off, De Gea is overrated shit. Hits a bit of form coupled with some soft as shite shots, and gets called amazing. Typical media driven reaction.
Maybe this story is Arsenal paving the way for Petr Cech! Which I would take.
Because the last player that joined us from Chelsea was such a success….
If you mean Yossi Benayoun on loan then you are wrong. Great season with us.
If you mean William Gallas then I’ll agree.. Just.
Cech is a quality keeper and if available I think we should take him.
By our current defensive standard, Gallas was good. He never got a suitable partnership with any of our other defenders. As captain, well, you know how bad he was.
Benayoun was actually good
This is a perfect time for invented allegations against Sczc, after the mistakes he made against soton, and ospina starting the Fa cup game which would’ve happen even if Sczc was in form of his life. Fabricating this kind of punishment statement rumors timed to perfections, just to unsettle our team and draw more pressure to wenger and our defense, with inventing something untrue just to gained followers and inventing bust ups in our dressing room to downgrade our team. idiots everywhere which don’t have a real job trying everything to gained publication.
…and the second goalkeeper was on the grassy knoll.
All rigt, so I’m from Denmark.
This means i regularly watch Premer League on danish TV, so (unfortunately) i get to watch John ‘Faxe’ Jensen on tele and listen to his antics. Seriously, the guy is a total mess. People over here often question whether he’s sober during broadcasts. It’s beyond me how he’s still getting paid to talk bullshit for hours, before sporting the usual “spoke to Bouldy the other day”. Worst thing is, he can barely speak the language.
Basically, he’s the danish equivalent of Jamie Carragher.
Surely you mean Ian Wright? Jamie Carragher, as far as I can tell, is sober. He’s just not that good at talking / having ideas. Wright, on the other hand, often appears to be on some kind of drug.
Jamie Carragher has a voice for photography.
Sorry but how had this been quashed ?
Inside info ?
Maybe I should try reading the article properly next time
Think Ospina should retain his place to let Wojciech know he has competition. Dropping him will only make him better, and watching Ospina for a couple of matches he can learn a lot from his calm and collected displays.
shez in age terms is still very young, he has improved in lots of areas, his distribution is often quite good, his kicking ability from dead ball situations has improved dramatically, but his desicion making on leaving his line is awful, he gets involved when he doesnt need to, he creats situations and puts the team under unessary pressure, i think he should have a few games on the bench that will make him concentrate better in future games, im sure he thinks he has to get involved all the time, his mind wanders. the 2nd goal at southampton how… Read more »
Come on, his reflex to drink was out of enbarrassment not arrogance.
szcz essentially created 2 goal scoring opportunities for southampton in that game. unacceptable for a keeper. bench him. if i was in charge i’d be looking for a new number 1.
So which keeper that has never made a mistake in his career would you hire?
And is it only not acceptable for keepers to make mistakes or anybody. In which case would you sell Mertesacker, Kos and Debuchy? Wilshere for missing easy chances? Cazorla for missing that chance against Southampton? Sanchez for missing that other easy chance against Southampton.
The internet really makes people fickle.
Give Ospina a run
Who? Ooooooooooooossssssssssssspppppppppeeeeennnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaa?
Just another, so called, expert trying to keep his name relevant. Hopefully Szczesny can bounce right back up and give us an Golden Glove-performance against Stoke.
This was never a starter as an idea. Let’s be honest, if Wenger actually held people to account for their actions and dropped people for shit performances that cost us games he would have fired himself 3 years ago.
Ospina deserves a long run.
Always looked assured and when he came out to punch that ball stayed punched!
He needs to be dropped to realise he can be replaced I’m hoping for a good run for Ospina to keep competition healthy; he may of won golden glove, but our defence was pretty tight last season; people keep saying our defence is poor so it’s not his fault; but so is man Uniteds and de gea is bloody awesome now that is a keeper that has kept United in games; when your defence is poor you need your keeper to perform his head goes as when our defences does; people also forget to mention another dodgy attempt of a… Read more »
I would be inclined to give Ospina a run.
However, I’d start Szcz against Stoke purely on the basis that he did superbly with the aerial bombardment of West Ham at Upton Park.
It’s fair to assume Stoke will be a similar game.
I think Szsc will be brought back in for league games. He cocked up last match against Soton but it happens. Its whether it repeats that is the question as it will possibly play upon the keeper’s confidence and game.
If he springs back into it, there is no problem.
Otherwise credit Wenger at least for finally fixing keeper position and bringing some depth with Ospina and Martinez.
Irrelevant, bust must watch at 1.20 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkwBhaBNU_s#t=85
See now, this is what happens when someone listens to a television commentator.
Is one persons perception of confidence anothers arrogance? When placing the blame solely at the doorstep of Szsc, consider how many times the great man himself has taken the unusual step of highlighting the failings of the entire defensive unit. If the issue is one of discipline then that should be addressed internally.
Its always easy to blame a goalkeeper from the missed saves they made and every goalkeeper has to show great mental state, take positive and come back stronger. Defense can run away with every mistakes they do and hardly substitued but goalkeeper will get the cane straight away..how the goalkeeper handle the situation is what matters and important. The rest of is to the coach to decide.
Reports are coming through that Woj was caught smoking in the showers after the St Mary’s game.
Arsene furious and has fined Woj 20k.
Rumours more than reports, I think. I’ll believe when Arsenal issues a statement about it, a la Wilshere. Really, this just isn’t even logical. He left the field at the end of the match with all the other players – it’s not like he got subbed off after the second goal and went to the dressing room alone. They all went to the showers at the same time. If he was trying to sneak off for a furtive fag, at what point in time would he expect to find the showers empty? And if you’ve ever been on the Emirates… Read more »
I worry about his attitude. I remember a comment he made once about how he refuses to watch replays with a coach. He has talent but his judgement is often poor. He should be watching his most recent performance, the one agaist Bayern Munich, in the Euros for Poland, etc., etc., etc., with a damn coach.
And I remember a video where he explains how he always analyses his performances with his former-goalkeeper-dad. (not former dad, his dad is a former goalkeeper. Grammar is hard)
i don’t even care about the rumours true or not. he should be benched. he’s supposed to be a top keeper at a top club. courtois, de gea, nuer, wouldn’t have a game like that. hart is prone to it, but pellegrini isn’t afraid to bench him if he does. has szcz ever had a motm performance? at the beginning of the year we were giving up the least chances and szcz would still let the first shot on net in. is this the keeper that’s going to win us titles? doubtful.
Two points I’d like to make here. 1. If I had performed like that against Southampton, I’d want a smoke too. 2. Honestly, I think we need him for Stoke. The chances we sign a top class keeper in January are less than the chances that we sign LeBron James, who might actually be a great keeper himself (American joke! Okay, sorry). Have we already forgotten his performance against West Ham, another team that looked to hit us with crosses and headers? Personally I think he gives away too many penalties and random kicks to Southampton players to be a… Read more »
How can you smoke while in shower?? I think scezny got fine for doing foolish things on and off the pitch 😛