Having signed Bernd Leno from Bayer Leverkusen for a club record fee of nearly €25m, Arsenal will dispense with one of their two senior goalkeepers this summer.
Right now it seems that David Ospina is the man most likely to make way, as Petr Cech was handed the number 1 shirt just a few weeks ago, signalling the club’s intention to keep him around.
However, the Colombian has been a mainstay of off-season departure rumours with links away every year since he joined in 2014 from Nice, and each time he’s stayed so there’s nothing 100% certain about this situation.
The 29 year old played in his country’s 3-0 win over Poland last night, and afterwards told the press he’d consider his options once the World Cup was over.
“I’m now fully concentrated on national team,” he said. “I know that Arsenal signed new goalkeeper, but I’m now focused on national team and after the World Cup I will think what to do next.”
As ever there is reported interest from Turkey, and with just a year left on his current deal he’d probably be available at a reasonable fee should the Gunners decide to cash in.
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I don’t understand the anti Ospina narrative that goes around. Statistically he is a top performer and has out performed Cech, Sczesny and many of the leading lights in the premier league – with the stats that are available for goal keepers. yet anytime he is put in the team we hear how cech should play, that its risky and then usually by the end of the game we are surprised that ospina has had a good game and made some awesome saves, and he has had to do that in spite of all the life threatening injuries that he… Read more »
It’s not an anti Ospina narrative. It’s just a lot of us don’t think he’s a very good keeper….
but thats based on something other than evidence. his record suggests he is, but your internal narrative suggests he isn’t
It depends on if you define evidence only in the very narrow definition of what statisticians count as ‘errors’. Ospina does a couple of things really well (his distribution is good & he is very quick off his line for one on ones) but he does pretty much all the basics badly (or average at best) imo…a lot of them lead to dangerous situations & destabilises the team…even if not an ‘error’.
I’m just going on what I see every time he plays.
the basics though… stopping goals.
His Shots to Goals ratio is much higher than cechs. last year he conceded a goal every 78 minutes against cechs 66.
That includes internationals..
Stats don’t tell the whole story, you have to think back to his misses: times he ends up in the net behind the goal line or amount of times he comes out flailing at a ball and missing it.
He’s a nice guy and a decent keeper, but we can do better.
I wish him all the luck in the world in Turkey or otherwise.
In cup games against more inferior opponents
Funny enough people kept on saying Szczesny is/was a better keeper and they liked him more, yet when the 2 played in the same season with the same defense in front of them Ospina actually saved our season as Szczesny made error after error. Fans still wanted Szczesny to start because he is taller and more commanding in the box. On came Cech and so far has been a liability in my books with his first games each season seems to give away silly goals yet Ospina comes in and does fantastically well for his few games in the prem,… Read more »
I think the 10-2 against Bayern and how very little he did to prevent it, will stick in my head for a long long time.
Our defence did to prevent it either, was he meant to save those ‘two on one’ chances Bayern scored? Szczesny concided 8 at Utd, 6 at Chelsea and 5 at Liverpool in single games, do Arsenal fans use that as a rod to batter him down?
Not saying either keeper’s better, but Ospina’s hardly been given a fair crack by fans.
*defence did very little to prevent it
I was only speaking about my self.
dunno about the rest of arsenal fans, but yes I Blame Szczesny among others for those disasters.
Didn’t Ospina win the battle of the keepers against Szczesny in the world Cup recently? 3 – 0?
I stopped reading after you said Ospina outperformed Cech. Nowhere near the class, lacks the presence and positional sense and far more error prone. With the signing g of Leno I really hope he is sold.
Leno is probably more error prone than ospina. Just saying. When ospina played for the season when szczesny got caught smoking he was solid, I was surprised that the only player we bought the next season was cech, coz ospina had done a good job and there were more important areas to strengthen. He doesn’t play very often now and even though he is basically always match rusty he still plays a high level. If he had been left as no 1 we wouldn’t be having to sign Leno now, it’s not like we won a lot since cech arrival,… Read more »
Wenger was very fair to Ospina playing in cup matches. Sadly the loyalty that he was shown probably cost us the Europa. league last season. I’m convinced if Cech has played in the semi finals we would have won.
There’s been an anti-Ospina narrative since he joined. His problem was that a large section of the fan-base thinks the sun shines out of Szczesney’s arse, and Bloggs will always find a reason do have a dig at Ospina, even if it’s to make derogatory remarks about his appearance. He was unlucky that Cech came in, and to my mind he’s a better keeper than Cech has been for the last two years. Perhaps he needs to go so that he can get the respect he deserves somewhere else, but I’ll be sad to see him go, and sad that… Read more »
It’s laughable that someone would talk about an anti-Ospina narrative when so many have played the ‘calm presence’ argument for so long…the most anti or pro narrative regarding any Arsenal player I’ve ever seen that was based on a total fantasy. Amazes me that people can’t just accept it’s the honest opinion of a lot of people that he just isn’t good enough…disagree all you want but there’s no conspiracy……..and the fact that no-one took him off our hands last summer when he was at a peak age for a keeper, he wanted to leave, Arsenal wanted him to go… Read more »
He was better than Szczesny in Colombia vs Poland yesterday, that I agree.
Ospina was very good, but Szczesny, in my opinion, cannot be blamed for any of the goals. I expect a photo of the first goal will be included in the Dictionary of Football Terminology as the illustration for “free header.” On the other two, he was one v one against a striker, positioned himself correctly, but both Falcao and Caudrado made no mistake.
There’s always an excuse isn’t there………
Yeah it is interesting that even if he gets a clean sheet he gets a player rating of 7 and nothing more but still the comments about he did not look comfortable dealing with crosses or commanding his box. Cech will have 3 passed him but will have an 8 because he made 3 saves and it was the back line fault. Maybe our back line are calmer with Ospina’s “shakey” self than they are with Cech’s dominant presence.
OOOOOOSSSSSPPPPPPIIIIINNNNAAAAAA!!!!!
I expect a fair few downvotes for this, but a lot of the rhetoric comes from the dated stereotype that South American keepers being rubbish.
Also, I’m sure he’s a good keeper, but half of the comments praising Leno’s signing suggest he’s young at 26 and can still learn – Ospina was 25 when he signed for us, regardless of whether he’s improved or not in the last 4 years, I can’t remember many mentioning his age and capacity to improve when we bought him.
Problem is he’s never improved. Still a bad error prone keeper
Really good comment.
Ospina gets so much heat for pretty much no reason at all.
As you point out (and form the comments below), he makes a lot of really good saves. The stats don’t lie.
One of my good buddies I watch with cannot stand Ospina. And every time I point out all the saves he makes in a game, its always like; yeah so? I don’t like him.
Makes no sense.
I’m not too fussed. With Leno, we should have a decent upgrade, and either of Cech and Ospina are decent enough number twos. I’d rather stick to Cech, I think. Sell Ospina and keep Cech for as long as he’s fit enough, then replace him with someone depending on how well Leno does – a young backup/possible understudy or an established keeper (to replace Leno if he does turn out shit)
Cech hasn’t been any good for two years now, I’d rather have Martinez than him.
He has regressed but still a vastly better keeper than Ospina
I hope he’s OK after that terrible injury he suffered yesterday. I just hope his World Cup isn’t over.
I busted out laughing as I saw him languishing on the ground after getting his ankle grazed. Glad to see he did his patented “lie on the ground for an inordinate amount of time” move.
i had been hoping we would go after kasper schmeichel but here’s hoping leno is the goods.
It says a lot that he speaks about Arsenal in third person..
He’s been better than Cech for over a season and half and a lot more consitent. gets more criticism than he deserves.