GOALKEEP CALM AND CARRY ON

Each team that have won the Premier League have had a top notch keeper between the sticks; Lehmaan, Schmeicel, Flowers, Cech, Seaman, Barthez (more on him later). In domestic cup competitions the consensus is that you can scrape through with a bit of luck and a kind draw here and there, but the facts are that the FA cup winners over the last 20 years have all had good keepers.In the Champions league the general standard is higher overall and to actually reach the final you need a high level of consistency.

Arsenal's goalkeepers at the start of the 2010/2011 season do not fall into the category of quality keepers; that's as fact. A fact that we, as Arsenal supporters, have to face up to until January at a minimum. We start the season hampered by this fact and one can only wonder at what point, and with how many points conceded will the Manager act to rectify the situation. Let's look at the case of Fabien Barthez.

At the start of the 199/2000 season Manchester United started the campaign with these goalkeepers, Massimo Taibi, Raimond van der Gouw and Mark Bosnich, after a calamitous showing from Taibi, Ferguson acted swiftly and decisively by bringing in world Cup winner Fabien Barthez for £7.8 million. The team went on to win the League by 18 points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMpjRfOmTjM

I know it's a bit boring and dispiriting to talk about our current goalkeeping situation and as such this will be my last missive on the subject. The point is that data, history and factual analysis all point to the problem. It has not been solved before the deadline and I can only hope that when the problem is eventually addressed and rectified that we haven't fallen so far behind that we need snookers. A ridiculous and preventable situation for our club to be in. I guess all we can do as supporters is Keep Calm and Carry on.