Emiliano Martinez signed a new contract with Arsenal on Tuesday, with manager Arsene Wenger making it patently clear that he sees the Argentine as a potential future first-choice goalkeeper for the club.
On the very same day, Hugo Keto, another individual with aspirations of assuming that title, produced a masterclass in goalkeeping as Arsenal U19s kept their hopes of progressing to the knockout stages of the UEFA Youth League alive with a 2-2 draw with Paris Saint-Germain.
Keto could do little about the goals he conceded but the Finnish youngster, who is now in his third season at the club, made some astonishing saves, which included a trio of stops in quick succession.
A goalkeeper with brilliant reflexes who is also an excellent penalty saver, Keto has developed extremely well during his time at Arsenal and his next aim will be to become the club’s first-choice goalkeeper at U23 level, although he currently finds himself behind Matt Macey in that regard.
Arsenal have several talented young goalkeepers on their books, but, at this juncture at least, it appears that Keto has the best chance of breaking into the senior squad. Whether he could potentially challenge Martinez or whoever else to be first-choice in the future remains to be seen, but he is certainly making encouraging progress.
At just 18, Keto is still very young, especially for a goalkeeper, and he will probably have to be extremely patient in his quest to make the first-team. If Macey goes on loan in January, however, then Keto could well be provided with an opportunity to establish himself in the U23 side, especially with Deyan Iliev’s injury problems persisting.
At one stage it appeared that Wojciech Szczesny had the position of Arsenal’s first-choice goalkeeper sewn up for the foreseeable future. Now, though, with Petr Cech in the closing stages of his career (although he isn’t likely to leave in the immediate future) an opportunity could eventually open up for a talented goalkeeper such as Martinez or Keto.
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Jeorge Bird is the author of www.arsenalyouth.wordpress.com Follow him on Twitter @jeorgebird
I disagree when you said that he couldn’t do anything about the goals against PSG. The first one was a bit of a mess on his part, aside from that he had a good game. From what I’ve seen of Keto I really like. I think he’ll be much better keeper than Macey in the future.
We look to be pretty stacked at gk at the senior and youth level. After Cech we’ve got WS1 who is doing very well at Roma, Ospina is a top top player, Emi has the trust of the coaching staff and has done well on loan and in the league cup, Macey top seems to have the trust of the staff considering that he’s already 22 and was given a new contract last season, Keto as you’ve mentioned, and let’s not forget Virginia who was excellent in the triumphant Futures cup team earlier in the year and was named as… Read more »
This guy is keto our progress in the UEFA youth league…
Damn we have a lot of keepers Czech, ospina , scenzny , Martinez , keto , macey , huddart , macey . too many 3rd choice keepers.
Not sure who will make it though. Jeorge bird once said huddart was good too. But Hugo keto and martinez are apparently our best bet to make it to first team
I’d love us to do to Martinez what Chelsea did to courtois, loan him out for 2 or 3 seasons, let him establish himself and make the mistakes youngsters will naturally make and come back once he’s more competitive and experienced. i feel like Cech has another 2-3 years left to compete at the highest level and osipina (or szczezny) would be a good enough back up. I love what Milan are doing with Donnaruma but it’s too risky in the prem especially with our defensive record.
At this rate, we bound to field only goalkeepers to alleviate our defensive issues