Is Ospina STILL the keeper Arsenal should start with?

After getting his Premier League career with Arsenal off to an incredible start with three clean sheets from his first three games, our Colombian international David Ospina has had a somewhat tougher time of things in the last two games, conceding two goals in the derby defeat by Spurs and then another to Leicester City on Tuesday.

So there have been a few more questions aimed in Ospina’s direction in the past week or so and his position in the starting line-up could be under some threat again from Wojciech Szczesny. The Poland international is likely to start against Middlesborough in the FA cup on Sunday and a good performance from him will only increase the pressure on Ospina, but is it too harsh to question the Colombian after the last two games.

I know that he maybe should have done better in palming away the effort that led to Kane’s first goal at White Hart Lane but apart from that I think Ospina has still been at a very high level and has made some very good saves. I also like the calm and confident way he commands the box and comes to catch or punch crosses away.

I did a stat comparison on Ospina and league’s top keepers before these last two games so I thought this up to date one from Squawka.com might show us whether his impressive figures had dropped off and they haven’t really. Against De Gea, Courtois and Lloris, the Arsenal stopper still comes out top, over a 90 minute average, in the overall scoring, clean sheets, goals conceded, saves per match, saves per goal and catches per match and he is just behind Lloris on punches per match.

So unless Shezzer has the game of his life on Sunday, should Ospina be back for the Premier League game next weekend?

Tags De Gea Szczesny

26 Comments

    1. “American women vote Arsenal star as Europe’s hottest player” ………. When it comes to sexiness, u can be sure “O.GIROUD” ain’t gonna be found wanting ….. L()L

        1. And who says we don’t win anything!

          (hteeteepees://)amp.twimg.com/v/756aa3d6-ee86-4cf1-a80e-c518a558a814

    2. The goal keeping position is one where am confident we r okay.
      They just need competition among themselves to keep them alert n we will get the very best

  1. Overall, Ospina has been playing excellent
    Szczesny needs to earn the top spot back. The Brighton match did not help his cause. Maybe he will do better against Middlesborough

    However, if Ospina plays the way he has been playing without injury, I can only see Ospina playing all matches (except FA Cup) for rest of the season.

  2. This headline could be said for any player this year !!!!!!
    i think apart from our new wizzard from barcalona the rest of the team have so stage been very average !!!!! most of them would have struggled to hold down a starting place in any of the other top 4 teams, I keep hearing fans saying we have loads of players but where is the quality that we all seen 10-15 years ago ? We do need new players but we need quality and get shut of alot of the average players we have now,

  3. Those he concede wouldn’t be stopped by any keeper. Shots from a cross at pace hitting a head 5 yards from goal bullets into a net. No keeper can stop it.

    Ospina has 100% concentration the who game. Szczesny rarely has a game he isn’t caught asleep. Some of his goals have been farcical. My trust is in Ospina for many different reasons, not least of all the concentration.

    Szczesny cannot even concentrate on not smoking in a place he can be reported about. How can you trust somebody that dumb.

    Being warned about smoking and having seen other players shown the door for not heeding the warning, what kind of brain does what he did. The same with Wilshere. Injuries heal slower in smokers and no matter how fit you are while being a smoker, you would be even fitter if didn’t smoke.

    I would consider a player doing things after I warned them – to be calling me c**t. They would be out.

    1. Its curious however that when reading a szcz article it says Szczesny dropped since smoking incident instead of reading Szczesny dropped since horror show at Southampton.

      Notice how it totally overshadowed an embarrassingly unbelievable blunder which should have had more focus.

  4. I think it’s clear than neither goalkeeper is top class. Arsenal could and should find an upgrade as soon as possible. I’m not saying they are horrible, but clearly there is room for improvement.

    1. He may play for Tottenham, but I don’t care, I wish we could get Lloris. Ospina hasn’t really played enough to judge, but Szczesny usually makes all the saves we expect of him, whereas Lloris is the kind of keeper that makes the saves people don’t expect as well. He doesn’t just stop ‘shots’, he stops ‘goals’, and he therefore wins points for the team.

      I’m not picking on Szczesny, he’s still quite young and shows promising signs, but he still has a lot to learn, but also no one to really learn from.. We were blessed with two of the best keepers in the world not so long ago, I’m sure David Seaman and Jens Lehmann would be happy to help out in a few training sessions. I’ve always felt we need to make better use of our legends as a club.

      1. Lloris is class but we would have slaughtered Szcez or Ospina if they had conceded that Markovic goal the other night. GK mistakes are glaring and they are subject to more scrutiny than any outfield player balls-ups. Ospina needs a run of games before we can say for def whether he is good enough and funnily enough he reminds me in many ways to Lloris – not physically intimidating, but very fast and agile and more often than not good decision makers.

  5. Ospina is definitely the man.The way he catches the ball from corners is impressing.
    He is fast ,agile and very good at low balls.
    Scezny was good at low balls but was weak at high balls.
    I rate Ospina as in the top 3 already of Keepers in UK.
    he s there for years to come if healthy.

  6. A week ago this site was filled with
    fans saying Szcz was finished and Ospina
    would be Arsenal GK for the next decade 🙂
    Yes Ospina should continue in the EPL
    and naturally the ECL v Monaco.
    Wenger has big wraps on Ospina so it would be
    a major back down if he played Szcz v Monaco.
    He could say Ospina has picked up an injury or the such like.
    Szcz has had 140 games to prove himself Ospina less than 10.
    If Szcz gets reinstated now Szcz will think “they try other guys but
    always come back to me” which will make him even more cocky.

  7. Ospina is miles ahead of Szeszny, miles ahead. The problem with us is too many of the same players essentially CAMs, we still don’t have a true LW and although Giroud is constantly improving he is far behind Aguero, Costa, even Kane. We need a real, lethal, tough, griddy CF like a cavani who i think if he came to the EPL would definitely put us in the title conversation.

    We need to sell wilshere, release flamini, diaby and sell podolski. Whatever money we get from their sales should go into funding a move for cavani and one of the bender brothers.

    1. Nice plan! Can’t see chief thinking the same way though especially with the stillhere, I mean Wilshere project.

    2. Yeah man. Cavani is currently tearing up the French league, often looked at as the strongest league in the world.

      Get a grip, just because he has an 85 rating on FIFA doesn’t mean he would kill the premier league

  8. people who are criticizing him can just F off. can’t believe at such a stupid article and stupid comments.

  9. Ospina needs his confidence back. Yes Szczesney will probs play against Boro. No, Ospina should not be dropped as first choice for prem league. It’s 2 seperate situations and Ospina just needs to get his game back to his own level – he’s not playing bad just the game situations have changed around him and a couple of minor errors have sneaked in. Nothing to make rash decisions over.

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