One of the greatest keepers of all time and you're turning your noses up? He'd bring bags of experience and help push Szczesny reach his potential. He also has something to prove after his horror displays in the WC.

He's too weak on crosses and too afraid of physical contact. I'd take him as an option but not as a guaranteed number one, which is what he seeks with a potential move.

Lopez has been the best keeper at Real Madrid for the last couple of years, and he has the stats to prove it. Casillas is a legend but he was never 'up there' with someone like Buffon as far as I'm concerned. His game is geared too much towards shot stopping. Szczesny is a great shot stopper too. It's other areas he's lacking in.

People turned against Mourinho when he benched Casillas, but time has proven that he made the right call. Ancelotti, who's another heavily decorated manager with faith in objective analysis, has kept him on the bench too.

High wages expected but shit keeper already, no thanks.

I would rather someone that can challenge Szczesny. Casillas will costs up alot of goals, even in cups.

Don't want Casillas for all the reasons already mentioned. The way I see it, we have a young GK in Szczesny as our no 1 who has steadily been building up experience over the last few seasons. Ability wise he is very good, but still has a lot of areas still to improve upon. We've now lost 2 back-up keepers which suddenly means the whole position is revisited. The options for me are:

• Bring in someone to instantly become our no 1 and quite likely end up demoting WS to a role as deputy after being our undisputed first choice over the last few seasons. That option is likely to cost a lot as better GKs (with fewer doubts hanging over them about their suitability for league) are in short supply and lower priced potentials like Cabellero are already being snapped up. The other downside is that Sczczesny starts to stall on his upward trajectory and in at least a season or so decides to leave.

• Bring in someone talented with no expectation of being automatic, but likely to be good enough to seriously challenge WS and be given a fair shot. Selling it to someone on the basis of reasonable opportunity I think is the hard part, but potential options from "lesser" teams/leagues may still jump at the chance.

• Bring in any reasonably capable GK whose fee/wages are cheap and concentrate our investment in other areas.

I think we are highly unlikely to sign a really top quality GK so believe the best way may be to look at the position of back-up as a really temporary position i.e. 1-3 seasons tops. That way, unless WS really screws up, he gains confidence and experience as our no 1, while his deputy gets a few games here and there, before leaving when he feels the need to start playing more. We then sign another GK who has preferably already got some regular experience playing who would not be as rusty from having spent the last few seasons on the bench. Not sure who I would like us to sign, but would prefer someone older than WS - possibly Jussi Jääskeläinen - never really going to challenge for starting GK, but plenty of PL experience, has lost his place at West Ham so would probably prefer to be on the Arsenal bench than theirs.

pretty sure cabellero will replace hart as #1.

casillas has sucked for a while now. the english league would really expose his weaknesses, too.

Can't believe people are even questioning Szczesny.
He's very consistent and is improving with the spectacular all the time and as he's young there is plenty of time and plenty of improvement to come.
Some say his passing should be better, boofuckinghoo he's a keeper not a midfielder he does his most important job well.
People should understand that there is a huge difference in playing in la Liga and in the PL. The Spanish style relies much on shot stopping they never sweep or even claim crosses it is highly reactive and never pro active.
Szczesny has nothing to learn from Cassillas or any Spanish style goalie, can't believe you've all forgotten about Almunia- The worst Arsenal goalkeeper- EVER.

His distribution was bad a couple of years ago but its was fine last season. I think people underrate him because his saves are less spectacular so you hear a lot of talk about how such and such an overrated other teams player is a better shot stopper but more often than not its untrue. You don't see many goals where Szczesny should have saved them. You just don't see a lot of massive leaping diving, just tip it round the post saves from him. Thats because he's usually better positioned so the saves look routine. He can improve a little but right now his level is excellent IMO. It'd be very hard to find a better keeper.

Sneezey was a big part why we were at the top as long as we were last season IMO. He saved us plenty of points with crucial class saves.

Woj was class last season. Imo he was the 2nd best keeper in the league, I only remember him making one mistake throughout the whole season.

Can't believe you're putting Casillas in the same bracket as Almunia Biggus just because they're both Spanish.

Agree that Szczesny was great last season. The response to him in some quarters is pretty weird to me. He was genuinely terrible in 11-12 when it seemed like he got a lot of praise but his improvement from that point to now has been tremendous and it seems like he gets more flack now than he did then. He was definitely amongst the best PL GKs for me.

right, except no one is slating chesney AT ALL. i feel like almost everyone actually agrees on chesney's level, but have different ideas about how he's "rated" by others, and so they get all bent out of shape when someone else says he's under or overrated. he's not world class, that should be obvious.

the way i see it:
tier 1 - neuer
tier 2 - courtois, etc
tier 3 - chesney, begovic, de gea, cech, mignolet, lloris, howard, fabianski, etc

Courtois is on the same level as Szczesny, Cech and De Gea imo.

"tier 2 - coutrois, etc"

like who else?

mignolet isn't on the same level as any other keeper on that list in tier 3 either. Guy is constantly making errors.

Diaby KungFu wrote:

Courtois is on the same level as Szczesny, Cech and De Gea imo.

I don't get the hype either.

Yeah its wrong too,
Tier 1. Neuer
Tier 2. Everyone else.

Tier 3. Almunia.

Courtois is top drawer, Szczesny not a patch on him. Come on guys, try to be objective. Rate those two on the same level in front of any neutral fan and you'll get laughed at. Szczesny isn't even a great shot stopper IMO, he's a decent keeper but nothing more.

If he doesn't improve next season it's time to consider looking for an upgrade. Neuer, Courtois, and Buffon can win you titles. Lopez, Valdes, Sirigu, Lloris, and Cech are better established keepers and De Gea, Ter Stegen, and Scuffet are better young players. That's all off the top of my head.

We have four top players in Ramsey, Özil, Alexis, and Koscielny. We need more at that level to win titles. When you have to carry all of Szczesny, Gibbs, Debuchy, Arteta, and Giroud in the starting lineup there's only so much you can hope for.

Courtois is much better than Szczesny and Neuer, in turn, is much better than Courtois. However, Szczesny sits in a large group of keepers who are relatively indistinguishable in terms of ability. a large number of keepers were lauded during the World Cup, but from Costa Rica to Algeria, none of these guys are visibly better than our guy. Our number 1 is fine. No need to replace him at this juncture. Just get in some back-ups who won't actively lose us games

innervisionscm wrote:

Courtois is top drawer, Szczesny not a patch on him. Come on guys, try to be objective. Rate those two on the same level in front of any neutral fan and you'll get laughed at. Szczesny isn't even a great shot stopper IMO, he's a decent keeper but nothing more.

If he doesn't improve next season it's time to consider looking for an upgrade. Neuer, Courtois, and Buffon can win you titles. Lopez, Valdes, Sirigu, Lloris, and Cech are better established keepers and De Gea, Ter Stegen, and Scuffet are better young players. That's all off the top of my head.

This is so wrong.