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Leno recall? Emery confirms who will start in goal for Arsenal against Chelsea

By on August 16, 2018

petr cech arsenal

Bernd Leno is going to have to bide his time as Unai Emery has confirmed Petr Cech will keep his place in goal for Arsenal’s trip to Chelsea this weekend.

Arsenal splashed out around £19m on Leno following his move from Bayer Leverkusen this summer and many fans assumed he’d been brought-in to replace Cech as our No.1 goalkeeper this season.

Cech’s form was poor last season as he made several high profile errors so it was exciting to see a talented, young keeper arriving from Germany to supposedly solve our problems between the sticks.

However, Cech seems to have stepped-up since Leno’s arrival as he impressed in pre-season and was given the gloves for our Premier League opener against Manchester City last Sunday.

While there were a couple of hairy moments and he could perhaps have done better for the opening goal, the Czech legend was largely excellent against City and made a number of decent saves to keep the score respectable.

That performance wasn’t enough for some fans as they’ve still been calling for Leno to be recalled for our trip to Stamford Bridge this weekend but Emery has just confirmed Cech will keep his place in goal.

Speaking at his pre-match press conference today, Emery told Arsenal.com he’s happy with Cech and he’ll remain in the team against Chelsea:

“I am very happy with his performance. He has experience, he has quality, he has the capacity.

“Also, with Bernd Leno [it’s the same]. They are two goalkeepers who are important for us. They have different qualities but for us in the way we want to play, they can [both] play.

“For Saturday, the decision for me is easy. Petr Cech can continue to start the match, I believe in him. [But] If Bernd starts, I believe in him also.”

I must admit I was surprised Emery selected Cech against City but he didn’t do much wrong to warrant being dropped this weekend so it makes sense he keeps the gloves for now.

It looks like Leno is being given some time to adjust to life in England and I expect he’ll now replace Ospina [who’s off to Napoli] as our goalkeeper in the Europa League and FA Cup this season.

Unless Cech makes some horrible errors or Leno excels in the cups over the coming months, I think we may have to wait until next season before seeing the German international taking over as No.1.

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