Arsene Wenger had words of praise for Jordan Pickford after the Sunderland stopper made a string of excellent saves against his Arsenal team last night, however despite reports to the contrary he doesn’t appear to be on the manager’s radar for a summer move to the Emirates.
The 23 year old was in outstanding form last night, making 11 saves – some of them really fantastic too – as Arsenal pummelled the Black Cats on their way to a 2-0 win.
Stops from Giroud, Iwobi and Mustafi in particular were superb, but Wenger says he’s got plenty to choose from in the goalkeeping department.
“We have plenty of goalkeepers,” he said. “We have Petr Cech, Ospina, we have Wojciech who is only on loan at Roma and has had an exceptional season. We have Emi Martinez.
“If there’s one thing we don’t need to buy, it’s a goalkeeper.”
Ospina yesterday suggested Arsenal would not stand in his way if he wanted to leave this summer, but Szczesny’s case is interesting, certainly, although like others he will only have 12 months left on his current Arsenal deal come the summer and that’s something that needs to be sorted out.
Still, Pickford’s performance was worthy of praise from the Frenchman, who said, “He had an exceptional night. I think we had 36 shots at goal, the highest in the Premier League. The keeper saved 11 of them, so he has done extremely well.”
It’s almost as if some idiot on a podcast said something about him putting in a performance exactly like that.
?
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Should keep Szczesny no matter what this summer, he has a great performance this season with Rome, would be a mistake if we sell him. Give him a chance to compete with Cech and who play better will earn the spot.
Ospina leaving Cech on the decline and generally poor this season a young ENGLISH goalkeeper is exactly what we need next season to gradually phase cech out.Wengers comment disappointing and exactly the reason we need new manager
Hahaha. Thanks for the laugh
Since Cech was handed a decent defense in front of him he has been outstanding. “Generally poor” is just bullshit Danny boy
He has been quite poor overall this season, but then again, a keeper is only as good as the defence in front of him, and at important parts of the season, we have had more holes in the back line than a sieve.
I’d like for once attention on Steve Bould and his drills. Isn’t defense and set pieces especially his domain? Why do we stick with zonal now that we have good tall blokes? Sure Wenger was a defender himself but we know he likes to attack… so what are the coaches working on?
We know these defenders aren’t bad. Even Gabriel is pretty badass on his day.
The keeper is only as good as the defense in front of him. Yet you want to buy jordan pickford who has had the shittest defense in front of him all season and got relegated. Interesting view haha.
When you have keepers like Chech and Szcz, you don’t even have to consider him. After such season he’d not come play as second or third, yet i’m still not too convinced he could maintain such a constant form.
Then you haven’t watched him this season. He’s been consistently excellent. Only injury has stopped him from being even more highly rated.
Don’t overlook Emi Martinez. Pickford has benefited, at a young age, from all the experience of playing a whole season in the PL (and behind a defence who generously give him an awful lot of shot-stopping practice). I believe Martinez has the potential to be at least as good. I’d like him to get a season on loan and show what he can do week in week out, but you do need a third goalkeeper in the squad, and at the moment he’s that guy.
I was raging watching the match. I kept going like
“HOW did that THAT not go in??? Oh come onnn”
He did a good job.
Pickford is a much better and more reliable keeper than Shezernay. He’s English too. Which maintains our quota of British players should Wilshere or Gibbs leave.
Chesny was given an English passport on qualifying with the immigration office. He rolled it up and smoked it saying English footballers suck, no can risk sucking. Then he became the best goalie in Italy. True story.
Wojceich is also home grown
Just because he’s not English, he can’t be good.
No body is saying that. The point was, we’re about to lose up to 2 of our quota of of “home nation” players, and we have to maintain that quota under FA rules. And replacing them with a talented young English goal keeper would be a good idea. I think.
I also happen to think he’s a better keeper than Shezernay.
He really isn’t, Wojciech has performed at a high level helping to rack up a good amount of clean sheets in Serie A. For all we know Emi Martínez is just as good as Pickford
I think people have gone over the top for Pickford after today – he made a lot of reaction stops which is fantastic for a lower team – but for a team like us I would rather a goalkeeper who keeps his concentration for 30 minutes in between action and has excellent distribution. Fabianski always looked a world beater when he would save 7 shots against us for Swansea, but when we he played for us it was his concentration and eccentricity that let him down.
Yeah true, I remember Simon Mignolet often having amazing games when he was at Sunderland because he’s a good shot stopper and then he went to Liverpool and you realise that at a bigger team you need a bit more than that. Having said that though I wouldn’t like to judge how Pickford would cope until he makes that move, however I agree that I don’t think the team that tries him out should be us
the dilemma again is the length of contract for schez will he be happy to be understudy to cech i doubt it now he has had a season of first team football again it seems we have failed on contracts this is one of many that the player calls all the shots
He needs to be ready to duke it with Cech. He has had a good stint at Roma. They are equals in my eyes. Ospina is a bit behind.
We have much bigger problems than who to sign as a goalkeeper.The apathy among the paying fans, the manager , the fact they won’t resolve the situation until after fans have renewed thier season tickets. Sanchez and ozil contracts.etc etc
Richard Wright did alright??? He was English.
Seaman was German
Why would we buy him? Cech is great still has at least 3 years in him. Don’t overhype Pickford just because he is English. It is a big diffrence to be a goalkeeper in big club. Pickford has a lot to learn before he can go there and for that he needs to be number 1.
There’s way more to goalkeeping than saving shots.