“Focused” Szczesny to start against Reading

Arsene Wenger has a tradition of playing his reserve keeper in the FA Cup and even stuck with Lukasz Fabianski in the Final last year after he heroically saved Arsenal in the semifinal penalty shootout.

Now Szczesny may get his chance to play in a Cup Final if he does a good job in tomorrow’s semifinal against Reading. Wenger believes that his break from the team after being dropped in favour of David Ospina has helped the Pole to focus on playing better.

“He has trained well. Very focused,” Le Boss said on the official Arsenal website. “As I told you many times it is our job to fight for our places. No matter how difficult it is, it is part of your job.

“I replaced Wojciech because he had a bad game [at Southampton]. I still think he is a great goalkeeper and I want him as well to have the opportunity to show that.

“I watched PSG against Barcelona [on Wednesday night] and they played their No 2 goalkeeper in the Champions League game. Why? Because you need to give them competition as well.

“Take any goalkeeper at any club, you don’t have many who play absolutely all the games in Europe. They need their moments of breather where they can recharge and focus again.”

Last year’s Cup Final was Fabianski’s last game for the club, and I wonder if Szczesny will do the same. Will he stay focused on regaining the Number One spot from Ospina or will he will he move on in search of first team football…

Tags Fabianski ospina Szczesny

17 Comments

  1. Sorry no I would play our best team as this is the only thing we can win this year. David has a great understanding with the team now so play him don’t care about the other goalkeeper don’t care about the fringe players you play the best you play to win you played to retain out u understanding with the team now so play him don’t care about the other goalkeeper don’t care about the fringe players you play the best you play to win you played to retain our cup

    1. Disagree – if Arsenal cannot win with fringe players against reading its embarrasing. – You need to rotate to keep players fresh and have less injuries as a result (the reaosn chelsea are beginning to struggle is due to a lack of rotation- you need to trust your squad). Our squad includes walcoot, wilshere, welbeck, gabriel, debuchy, szceny etc. these players should be able to come in and deal with reading and should be gunning to play werll to win a regular starting 11 spot. You need to keep your whole squad happy otherwis eyou end up with squillacis and denilsons on the bench again as theo and wilsehre go and join lpool and city.

    2. Chezzer played for us when our defense was shiite. To compare Chezzer stats with Ospina’s stats since January is like comparing my driving to Lewis Hamilton.
      Chezzer was exposed often. Some of you may have short term memory loss. But I remember him performing when we had a very leaky defense.

    1. U are not alone (I don’t mean to quote MJ), the guy is just damn full of himself. When he starts, I only wonder how long before we are scored. Used to be good, but pride got in the way.

  2. We should have faith in Chesney, his lack of focus was because he became reluctant and he was too assured of starting over Fabianksi. Now Ospina has practically overtaken him in the pecking order he (hopefully) realised that his talent alone isn’t going to keep him in the top spot despite his golden glove award last year (which was more due to our fantastic CB pairing).

    I know he will do a good job just like against Manure and he will take us to the final just like his countryman did last year, just not in the same way hopefully.

    1. What is want from szczoo is to hand over the no.1 jersey to Osssssssspina next season. He is a good back up

  3. Szczesny will come good against Reading. Be rest assured.
    3-1 for us.
    Waiting for our celebrations come Saturday night!!!

    COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. Usually have a good deal of hope/faith with our players, but something about Szczesny is off for me and i wouldn’t flinch if we sent him packing in the summer.

    Was given the world at 21 and his lack of professionalism has stunk the place out and reduced him to being just a good 24 year old goalie. De gea/Courtois in different galaxies and neither have more talent.

    Guess that’s it, I don’t expect every player to be world class but I’ve no time for talented ones who skip the hard work. Arguably got rid of the wrong Pole last year, long road back for Szczesny in my book.

  5. When we played United, Szczesny had a mishandling of the ball that scared the crap out of me. He dropped the cross when he tried to catch it. This was right after the Rooney goal

    At the end of the day, I would prefer Ospina but Wenger has decided for Szczesny. All we can do is hope Szczesny performs well and reading doesnt get too many shots on goal

    I believe you should always play your best keeper

  6. i think we’ve come rather too harsh on our former no 1…i blame d media and the hyping they give to youngsters,the list is long, wilshere,sterling,scez nd now kane (oh boy i hope he keeps his form and.doesnt feel like CR7 nxt year)
    ..we all know scez was good and improving..but just a year of gettin the golden glove snd gettin hyped,he lost focus thinking he’s arrived..Ospina z doing great abd am happy..but scez once did great..all i hope for his he learns his lesson and improve and hope Ospina wont get carried away cus we backing him up now..Scez deserves the chance to fight back..i see nothing wrong in playin him tommorow

  7. I still think Shezza is a quality goalkeeper he’s still very young in goalkeeper years. Yeah he makes mistakes sometimes and at times he get a little bit cocky and loses his concentration. I don’t think we should give up on him he still has the potential to be one of the best. His temperament will improve with age. He needs games In case anything happens to Ospina. He worries me far less than Fabiański used to worry me.

  8. May be it is time we stopped kicking him when he is down. May be he has learnt his lesson and may be there is redemption for him further down the road – we have given up on many before him who have come back to prove us wrong. I think the boy is a hugely talented goalkeeper who needs his brain re-calibrated/fine tuned in order to succeed. He is 24 years old – David Seaman didn’t even start with us until he was 26, Lehmann at 34.

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