It’s another Gunnervlog, this time touching on the goalkeeping situation at the club.
With David Ospina rumoured to be leaving and Wojciech Szczesny linked with a move to Juventus, there’s room for an addition.
However, James has info that suggests Emi Martinez will be promoted to become Petr Cech’s understudy next season.
Interesting. Watch below, and don’t forget to like and subscribe the Gunnerblog YouTube channel.
It’s hard to argue with this as Emi looked very good the few times he’s played and not put a foot wrong and by all accounts has great potential.
However, it does make you wonder if Wenger can be so ruthless with Szezny, how comes numerous other players in the squad haven’t faced the same amount of ruthlessness?
or maybe he just wanted to leave for a team that actually competes for champions league
The real problem which has reared its head already three times this window is that we are selling our players for way too cheap. £14m is a joke for a respectively young goalkeeper who just played two full seasons in top flight football. And is wanted by one of the biggest teams in the world. Who have said they view him as the successor to arguably the best goalie who ever lived. Double it. And add 10m. Let’s see how much they want him. Ospina fee is unbelievable. Gnabry, well the whole thing’s a joke. Mind you this is a… Read more »
Indeed we do but he still has the knack too keep the club among the elite.
You call it ruthlessness, I call it bad judgement.
It is VERY easy to argue with this as Emi is ridiculously inexperienced.
And it makes me wonder whether the one being ruthless is Wenger or Szczestny.
Also, James’ question of how useful going abroad would be for Emi’s development is a little facetious as it seems to have helped Szczestny.
If this “info” is true, it’s pathetic. It’s where we were five years ago. Get rid of a player in his prime and replace him with “one for the future”.
God, two more years of this shit. Fuck me.
Well said that man.
We don’t see the half of it in his defence, I know the smoking took the headlines, but maybe he saw something else. We’re just left with a guessing game. It’s a bloody shame whatever the case is, as Szcezny should have been our number 1 for years to come based on his ability and love for the club. It was Wenger that gave him that chance though.
It.s simple. Be a nice yes man/boy and you can stay for your whole career at Arsenal? (Theo)
you mean – 19 goals this season Theo?
Standard
I see the logic behind it. No top level keeper will be happy playing second fiddle to Cech for the next few years.
However I’d like to see a number two that competes with Cech, rather than an understudy.
Great chance for Martinez though. And that’s kindabin keeping with the Arsenal tradition.
*kinda in keeping
Szczesny is good enough to start for us with Cech as cup keeper.
More than Wenger, I think he (and particularly his father) have issues with our GK coach.
And i agree that it’s time to look as Cech as our number two, and as a solid backup. He had a great end to the season, but if we’re going to compete at top level, we need the very best, and he lost that status a few years back when Cortois took over at Chelski.
If Chez is good enough to be Seria As best goalkeeper and potential replacement to arguably the best keeper in modern history for the team that has been in the CL final 2 years running, then he’s good enough to be out first choice and Cech his back up.
Don’t understand this idea tha certain players are undisputed first choice. This damn Arsenal pecking order.
I really don’t understand it. We won’t get a player of sczc’s quality for less than £30m so why are we letting him go for half that given that Cech will need replacing sooner or later and Martinez while talented has never played a full season in any top division?
Because Szczesny have just one year left on this contract and don’t want to be a backup?
So he shouldn’t be back up. What reasons are there for him to be back up?
Why should the best keeper in Italy come back to be back up to a keeper who’s not even top 5 in the PL?
Why do u think there is an issue here.
Far too much faith being put into martinez could be a good idea filling the lads head with confidence but again I’d have something solid between the sticks as an extra option incase
No. This isn’t good news at all. At 35, Cech can not be expected to play the majority of games without picking up an injury or requiring some rest. As promising as Martinez may be, he is not a player who I would trust in the big games to organize the defence and instill the team with confidence. By all means play him in the cup games, but we should be doing all we can to ensure we have two keepers of near equal quality to have the best chance of succeeding, with the Europa league likely to add more… Read more »
A more ruthless Manager would be looking long term and sell Cech & Opsina this summer while keeping Szczesny & Martinez (with the possibility of loaning Martinez and possibly buying someone like Butland).
Cech hasn’t been great this year, maybe it was the defence that affected this performances but at 35 he’s only going to get steadily worse.
If Martinez is staying then he needs to be the Europa keeper.
Buffon is freaking 40 years old
Buffon is a one off and an exception to the rule. Cech is still ok but not as good as Bufffon. You could still sell Cech now for decent money.
Yes, and hes not as good as he was 10 years ago. Still one of the current best in the world, but not at his height anymore.
Cech is a very valuable character in the dressing room! His experience and leadership can’t be underestimated.
Agreed. But not as our #1. Unless we want to be a top six Premier League club. Which, i hear from the baord and AW, we don’t.
Absolute madness. Emi is not ready and Szczesny is as good as Cech. Emi also needs to go out on loan to play. Keepers need gametime and to get away from the Arsenal coaches.
The green towel says no!
Surely we could keep a first class keeper happy with just our Cup commitments? The Europa alone is about a million games. To get rid of all our experienced backups for peanuts is a massive risk with no real upside.
I shall miss the ooooooooospina
Nothing wrong with having a mad bastard in goal.
Lehman did rather well.
I like Emi, and I’m all for training youth. If Arsene thinks he’ll be better than Szczesny, I’ll hope so too. But the thing is, there’s an “if he becomes better” and there’s also a “will be” in there too. He’s not better than Szczesny right now. And so, it does annoy me that Arsene, and Arsenal, sometimes sacrifice the club and results so a youth player gets his turn. Sometimes it works out brilliantly like Fabregas, and sometimes it keeps up from titles, because we’re training players and not competing. This not competing comes back to bite us in… Read more »
It’s been said before but how on earth is Szczesny worth only £14million? Ospina £3million.. when Man City are shelling out considerably more for a goalkeeper considerably less than the two mentioned.
Because we’re poorly managed and carry a horrible inferiority complex
Because Wenger let everyone run their contracts down so no one thinks is they need to pay market rate for any of our players. I don’t quite get the Ospina thing – he makes some great saves but he also lets in some cheap goals. The idea that no one other than a Turkish club wants him (as other than a backup and at a fee that is pretty much us giving him away) should tell you he’s not highly rated outside Arsenal
If it’s clear to everyone they’re not staying and they can just wait out a bosman, that’s all we can get unless the players are open to being shopped around.
If I’m Szcz, not staying, and Juve is knocking, I’m not even considering thinking twice.
I think the clear out is to free up the wage bill so that we can offer Ozil, Alexis and new signings competitive wages.
With the retention of Wenger it’s clear the club have accepted that we’re now a Europa League level team so we’re cutting our cloth accordingly, as such there’s no way we can keep 2 top level goalkeepers.
In fact we can’t really keep any top level players in their prime so expect Sanchez and Ozil to go as well.
I sincerely hope this report is wrong because it makes sense to bring our pole in the goal back, might have to change my name back to Fed Up!!!
Cech is the one who needs to be replaced, I will be happy with Wojciech and Martinez. And bring back Cesc Fabregas please.
We nurture young players to sell them to big clubs later when they were ready. Not ruthless enough as a club.
If he’s going to be our #2, we should probably all learn to pronounce his name correctly
Everyone complaining about the low fee should try to bare in mind that his contract is up next year. The issue isn’t necessarily the negotiating of his fee, it is that again we’ve let a valuable player run their contract down to the last year and put us in a difficult position. I was shocked when we let Flamini do it all those years ago, and now we’ve managed to do it again with countless first team players. What’s going on? Why are we letting this happen year after year? Wenger has conceded that it was unhelpful to the team… Read more »
Just from the outside it appears that Wenger tied all these contracts to his. The charitable read is he wanted to give the new manager flexibility to work with if he didn’t want Ramsey, jack, Alexis etc. the less charitable read is he figured the players would all re up (similar to Walcott a few years ago) if he stayed and if Wenger left then it’s not his problem. This really is why the club needs to modernize- you simply cannot allow all your players to run down contracts to the point where you are having to sell players for… Read more »
At this club, the manager decided he didn’t trust anyone with those duties. This isn’t a situation the club inflicted on the manager, just as letting the best GK in Italy, still under contract, leave for the best team in Italy for a knock-down price isn’t being forced on him. If Arsène has all of these hopes & expectations for Emi, I hope desperately that he’s right. But I heard all of the same types of compliments applied to Almunia and Fabianski. Cech had a very poor season by his standards, rescued in the last 6 weeks of the campaign,… Read more »
Shouldn’t even even be surprised.
It’s nice to see that one of our younger players made that big of an impression year after year on loan and is getting rewarded for it to many of them go on loan and end up been sold I will be delighted if he ends up becoming the next big name among our keepers big boots to fill Jennings seaman Lehman cech etc good luck to him
I.ve always thought Emi looks like a good goalie. Why shouldn.t he get his chance? He has talent. He has been patient. He never complains publicly. I guess he qualifies as home grown. So while I understand the desire to have more experienced comp for Cech at some stage we have to Martinez his chance or decide he is not good enough and let him go. I doubt he can be any worse than Almunia anyway
As much as shez says he is Arsenal through and through he will not be prepared to come back unless he is the no1 there lies the problem he like 6 other players having one year left on contracts hold all the trump cards we cannot as a self sustaining club let players leave for free when a fee all be it less than the market value its a no brainer same applies to Ozil and Sanchez if they are adamant to leave now the club cannot use the i will keep them till their contract expires syndrom as usual… Read more »