Wojciech Szczesny

Am I the only one who is not convinced with this guy? I mean he likes to take risk passing to defenders and then whenever he takes goalkick it's never accurate. Some of the times it just go out.

Giving away throw ins to oppositions wtf!

He's still young and he'll improve. It was irritating to see him give the ball away so many times though... and I just cannot accept that a professional football player can kick the ball out of play so badly under no pressure whatsoever.

posted this on norwich post match:

"Only Kenny (62.7%, Jaaskelainen (62.6%) and Robinson (56.3%) have a lower % of shots on target saved than Szczesny (63.3%).
Top 5 save % - Hart (77.5%), De Gea (76.4%), Stockdale (75.9%), Mignolet (73.2%), Friedel (73.2%). PL Average 68.8%"

via Orbinho

He should have dealt with their first goal and their third goal. He always comes out and gets the ball, and just when I expect him to do so like normal, he stands there and expects Morrison to miss his chance. 3 goals from 4 shots on target? He has the fourth lowest save to shot ratio in the league. I might be knee jerking because I like the guy and I'm usually confident with him in goal, but he might have a big hand in costing us a CL spot (for their third goal, although I admit we were asleep right after we scored our third).

He has no competition and it's making him sloppy. He knows however bad he plays, Fabianksi and Alumnia are not going to start ahead of him.
If he had an experienced pro to compete with, the Freidel and Schwarzers of this world, he'd not be making those silly errors.

This is such a knee jerk reaction. It's not like he's been bad on a consistent basis. There have been matches where he has saved us points so let's not get ahead of ourselves and label him a sucker based on one performance.

Durrell wrote:He has no competition and it's making him sloppy. He knows however bad he plays, Fabianksi and Alumnia are not going to start ahead of him.
If he had an experienced pro to compete with, the Freidel and Schwarzers of this world, he'd not be making those silly errors.

Very much this.

also this is not kneejerk. He's been doing this all season long. I'm not saying he's not good. He is good. In fact he can be the best in the world. But now he's very inconsistent. Compare performance at Anfield this season and just now.

looked awful today in all departments - not composed at all

I've thought his kicking is poor for a few months now. And he is starting to make important mistakes. I like the fella, he is a very promising young keeper but don't all young keepers make the odd mistake? Hopefully he can improve next season.

I agree with Sam that there is no pressure on him to keep the Number 1 spot. I would like to see a new keeper come in in the summer to make Chesney work for his place.

He has tremendous potential, no doubt. But is he top drawer already? The answer is no. And putting it simply, we have two choices: (a) get behind him and help him develop, may be at the cost of a few more slip ups, or (b) get an experienced keeper who can bring calmness in between the sticks and also teach the lessons of experience to Szczseny(which could, in theory, stunt Szczseny's growth just a little).
I choose the latter, as it could bring in healthy competition and I also think the Pole is humble and big enough to realise there are better keepers than him in Europe(if he has to step down to number 2, ie), and he still has a long way to go.

The fact is, the first goal was a disgusting error by a supposedly top class keeper. The second, we always seem to concede to lucky looping deflections over him. The goals Norwich scored today were embarrassing.

Subrat007 wrote:the Pole is humble

LOL

Durrell wrote:He has no competition and it's making him sloppy. He knows however bad he plays, Fabianksi and Alumnia are not going to start ahead of him.
If he had an experienced pro to compete with, the Freidel and Schwarzers of this world, he'd not be making those silly errors.

In the same way that when De Gea started getting jittery and losing confidence mid season Lindegaard came in and looked to take the starter's role away until he got injured, by which time De Gea had regained a bit of composure.
Szcz is young, but he has committed the same errors a couple of times this year, like bad angle positioning for the 3rd goal.
Also, I think Fabianski is a better pure instinct shot stopping goalkeeper than Szcz.
I feel Fab. would've moved for the 3rd goal, whereas it froze Szcz - but by that time Fabianski would've let in a couple more like the 1rst goal today.

Szczesny always comes out and claims balls in situations like when the third went in. I don't know what he was thinking and didn't this time.

He was poor today. His kicking generally is poor. He seems to take a few too many liberties in the box. And the first goal was his fault today.

The other two weren't though. And he's excellent with crosses, and usually very dominant. He makes some excellent, excellent saves (made one today but they were already offside). And he's the best keeper we've had since Lehmann, all at the age of 21 (or whatever).

I argued in the other thread that his low save ratio is likely due to the opposition having high quality chances on the few occasions they get shots on goal. All Norwich did today was break, break, break, and those kinds of chances have a much higher success rate than teams shooting outside the box against a parked bus, or low percentage efforts like that. The stats, I think, are misleading, because we tend to leave ourselves stupidly exposed with our defending/style of play.

I think an experienced back up both to challenge him as well as to offer him guidance would benefit him. But he's our number 1 for the long haul, and I feel comfortable with him in that position.

Van Roy Bostanian wrote:Szczesny always comes out and claims balls in situations like when the third went in. I don't know what he was thinking and didn't this time.

He looked pretty nervous all game, not sure why. After the first goal went in he looked even more nervous. Perhaps that was a factor.

He is still very young which should not be forgotten. He could still have another two decades in the game. He will obviously have some mistakes in him at this age, all young goalies do, but he will improve and become a beast. He is one of the best young goalies in football, in my opinion, and if he works hard (and has good competition so he doesn't get sloppy) then he will definately get better.

His kicking can be awful though.

Not to mention in his PL debut against United he could barely boot the ball past the halfway line, and that was just last season.

If Szczesny starts today he will be the first player since Lehman in 05/06 to start all 38 league games in a season. Not a bad record for such a young guy, clearly still learning his trade.

I read somewhere that Szczesny hasn't been training for five weeks with a shoulder injury, but is still playing the games. If that's true, what a hero.

Van Roy Bostanian wrote:I read somewhere that Szczesny hasn't been training for five weeks with a shoulder injury, but is still playing the games. If that's true, what a hero.

Yeah I heard this as well on twitter, apparently he's been on pain killing injections for the past 5 weeks, which could explain a lot and its sad how little faith wenger has in our 2nd keeper then.

Jason Morrison wrote:

Van Roy Bostanian wrote:I read somewhere that Szczesny hasn't been training for five weeks with a shoulder injury, but is still playing the games. If that's true, what a hero.

Yeah I heard this as well on twitter, apparently he's been on pain killing injections for the past 5 weeks, which could explain a lot and its sad how little faith wenger has in our 2nd keeper then.

Yeah Wenger confirmed this during his press conference. Fabianski is fit right? That surely must be it for him. Would be great to bring in a more experienced keeper for competition. It also explains some of Sir Ches' questionable performances as of late. I wonder if he'll play in the Euros if he's injured?

With Fabianski as good as gone and Villareal relegated, could we get Diego Lopez? Personally, I wouldn't mind him.

Is he any good?

Craig Gordon is available on a free this summer He would provide great cover for Szczesny