Stone Cold Friday: Between The Sticks

Darius wants to chat goalkeepers…

This week, I thought I’d tackle a contentious topic that seems to split Arsenal fans the world over. Everyone has an opinion about our goalkeeping, an area of our game that some observers consider to be the weak link on our road to success.

For around 6 weeks earlier this season, the official line of “chest infection” was filed in the physician’s office at London Colney under the name of Manuel Almunia. For what it was worth, most of us took Almunia’s chest infection to be the garden variety bug that hits us once in a while. We now know that Almunia was dealing with a lot of mental anguish following a family tragedy and Wenger chose to give him the space to regroup.

On his return, the sight of Almunia sitting on the Arsenal bench in the encounter with Birmingham City told its own tale. It reminded me of the thunderous face of Jens Lehmann some 2 years ago when he was confined to the bench as Almunia was preferred as the No. 1 for the game against Spurs at the Emirates.

Lehmann had recovered from his mysterious and long term elbow injury that magically disappeared on the occasions that he kept the gloves for the German national team. In that game against Spurs, Almunia saved a Robbie Keane penalty to keep us in the game and as the Arsenal bench erupted in jubilation, Lehmann could only muster a clenched fist in his tracksuit pocket as if to say, “Damn you, I could have saved that one too”.

At the beginning of the 2007/08 season, Lehmann cost us unnecessary goals. In the first game against Fulham, his attempted agricultural clearance gifted a goal to Fulham’s David Healy; against Blackburn he gifted Sparky’s team an undeserved equaliser. Soon after, Lehmann developed a mysterious elbow injury that started his long journey out of the Arsenal.

Wenger has form in dropping players who are not playing well. At the beginning of this season, it was unthinkable that Almunia wouldn’t be the No. 1, let alone Don Vito being preferred to him. Lukasz Fabianski was keeping Colin Lewin gainfully employed; Wenger had no choice but to field Don Vito of Colney. To his credit, Don Vito surpassed all expectation and gave Wenger what you can call a very good headache. You can never suffer from having too many options in football.

Now that Almunia has reacquainted himself with his duties in goal, it seems an appropriate time to debate the issue of our goalkeeping performance. His recent run of games in my view is enough time to get over the mental anguish and stress that his family has faced in recent times. Manuel himself proclaimed only a few days ago that he is now mentally and physically fit, while acknowledging that he has not had the best of starts this season.

Unfortunately for goalkeepers, a dip in form, individual errors or poor judgement results in a goal. We seem to have suffered from all of the above at different points over the last few seasons – so it’s not surprising that this is an emotive subject.

There are two schools of thought that seem to have emerged over this issue. Firstly, there are those that are adamant that as one of the elite clubs in the world, Arsenal deserves a ’world class’ keeper of the ilk of Seaman. For this group of fans or commentators, Manuel Almunia is never going to be good enough – nor is his under-studies Fabianski, Don Vito and Szczesny.

From this group, it is imperative that Wenger cuts his losses and invests in a proven ’world class’ keeper. When the question is posed about who Wenger should get – they invariably default to the ”he should have got Shay Given in January” mode; or you get names like Rob Green, Jussi Jaaskelainen, Hugo Lloris and Igor Akinfeev bandied about in desperate hope.

The second school of thought subscribes to the notion that we do indeed have good enough goal keepers, and perhaps our bigger problem is an overall defensive one. Whilst it’s accepted generally that Fabianski, Don Vito and Szczesny are not yet ready; Almunia can and should hold his own against his peers in the premier league.

The goals we’ve conceded so far suggest that there is an issue when it comes to our ability to keep things tight at the back. Many will say that when the chips are down, games are won by the individual heroics of quality goalkeepers and that Almunia hasn’t shown this as one of his qualities. I’m sure if I tried, I’d find the statistics to make a case for or against Almunia’s contribution in parallel with comparing him to his peers. I’ll sidestep that today. Suffice to say that no individual goalkeeper in the premiership so far, has stood head and shoulders above the rest so it does put things in perspective.

I believe Almunia is a good enough keeper for the Arsenal. He might not be all ’Hollywood’ as some would expect of the superstar goalkeeper sought by all and sundry, but he is effective enough to do the required job. The issue for me is more of his mental attitude and application – and I fail to see how a summary decision to replace him resolves the issue outright.

What the team needs most is defensive discipline and mental strength to be able to do the basic bread and butter things when the chips are down and we need to close a game out or fight for a draw or win. We need to be more consistent in maintaining our defensive nous and reigning in the attacking instincts when the game dictates that we do so. The game last week against Stoke City showed we can do this. Stoke didn’t get anywhere near our box for most part and when they did, the ball was given its due attention. Once is not enough, we have to do it more often.

We already know that Almunia is an excellent shot stopper. I’d like to see him be more of a marauding menace in the 18 yard box. Shot stopping by itself isn’t good enough and he needs to own that box and bully everyone like he owns the title deed to that area of the pitch.

’til Tomorrow.