Paul Merson claimed on Soccer Saturday (12/12/20 at 1:40 pm) that Bernd Leno looked ‘lost’ during Arsenal’s defeat in the North London derby last Sunday.
The Sky Sports pundit thinks a goalkeeper of better quality would have ‘caught’ Heung-Min Son’s curling effort last week, which opened the scoring against Arsenal.
Amid Arsenal’s problems in recent months, Leno has been one of their better players, both this season, when Mikel Arteta first arrived and even when Unai Emery was in charge.
But despite that, Merson was pretty critical of the role Leno played against their rivals, as Arsenal are still seemingly feeling the effects from that defeat.
“If I am being honest here,” said Merson. “I don’t want my goalkeeper getting beat from there. I am sorry but I don’t want him to get beat.
“The only way he can get beat is on that side. He is far across. He’s a bit lost the goalkeeper because he is going back and back.
“I mean come on. A good goalkeeper, who has got his angles right and when he was jogging knew where his goals was would have caught it.”
No man at Arsenal has more faith in Leno than Arteta because he stuck by his main man this summer and opted to sell the in-form Emiliano Martinez.
And whilst others will pick out small pockets of criticism to beat the German with, he will still stand tall in between the sticks for an Arsenal team that is desperate for a positive result.
Defeat against Burnley tonight and then the pressure will really mount on Arteta at the Emirates because a club of Arsenal’s stature simply cannot afford to be slumped in the bottom half of the Premier League table.
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