Although Arsenal have just spent a massive amount on bringing Bernd Leno over from Bayer Leverkusen this week, I can assure you that for the next 12 months he will be learning the ropes from Petr Cech and the new keeper coach Javi Garcia from PSG.
It has been widely reported that Leno was not picked for the German national team because he seems to have suffered a crisis of confidence in the last campaign, and although we all hope that he can benefit from the change of scenery we will only be seeing him in action in the Europa League and the League Cup while Cech plays out the final year of his contract, with the Gunners with the Number One jersey on his back for the first and last time..
I did think it strange that Jens Lehmann was let go considering we have just acquired our first German keeper since the Mad Jens was between the sticks, and Leno has admitted that the Invincible was one of his heroes as a youngster. Leno told arsenal.com: “When I was a child, Iker Casillas was always my idol, but when I was at Stuttgart, there were many players, like Timo Hildebrand and Jens Lehmann. I watched many of Jens’ training sessions to learn from him. So yeah, they were my idols.
“I had some training sessions with him when I was very young, about 16 or 17 years old. Jens Lehmann was around 40 years old and for me it was very exciting. He was so concentrated, so professional and that’s the mentality that you need as a professional goalkeeper.”
So as some readers have been saying that they were worried about Leno coming in, they can breathe easier knowing that he will be learning and hopefully improving drastically in the coming year….
Admin