Reviews of Leno don’t sound amazing but I don’t think we’re going to sign anyone from the top tier anyway. If he’s an obvious upgrade on Cech it’ll do.

is he any good? haven't seen much of leverkusen lately

it's encouraging that all the problem areas are being addressed quickly

Can’t say I have watched him but this doesn’t make me too hopeful.

Don't rate him. Would rather Butland if we were going down the cheap goalie route.

Oh please not another error-prone goalkeeper.

Might as well get Karius.

Alfredo Pedulla (Tier 1 in Italy): Arsenal have offered Leverkusen €20m for Bernd Leno. Leverkusen want €22m + bonuses.

This guy is very reliable...

Fabrizio Romano: Leno getting closer to Arsenal

Orny also said we are in for a KG. So this is looking like it will happen.

The way I see it...(note that I'm trying to be positive about Arsenal things now). He is 26, he started young as the next best thing but slowed his development last few years, so I'm hoping he can go up another level here. Maybe a move is what he needs to kick on, and I also trust the new coaching team to push the players at the club and make them better.
Also, even at the level he is now, he is still better then Cech and Ospina. And with a few new players in defense and Unai teaching them how to defend there is no way we don't get better ... no way we don't concede less then last year. We can only go up from here....
Sell Ospina and Ema Martinez and we can make up close to the 20 mil we pay for him.

Good points Steak. It's obviously not at all a given but look at the trajectory of Ter Stegen, he was considered a big talent but kept making loads of mistakes for Gladbach and the German youth and A teams, even his first seasons at Barcelona were very shaky. Now he's better or equal to anyone not called Oblak or Neuer. Not to say it'll happen again but it's not unthinkable that Leno would make the next step in his development at a bigger club, after all despite his 300+ apps he's still only 26, just a couple months older than Alisson who everyone is still expecting to grow better.

Ter Stegen ans Leno by the way have a badblooded rivalry or rather feud since their U16 days, Matthias Sammer used to describe it as Ter Stegen being Oliver Kahn's and Leno as Lehmann's heir. Not the worst keeper to be compared to

He looks decent with the ball at his feet.

He’ll start off our Merryballing right from the back!

jones wrote:

Good points Steak. It's obviously not at all a given but look at the trajectory of Ter Stegen, he was considered a big talent but kept making loads of mistakes for Gladbach and the German youth and A teams, even his first seasons at Barcelona were very shaky. Now he's better or equal to anyone not called Oblak or Neuer. Not to say it'll happen again but it's not unthinkable that Leno would make the next step in his development at a bigger club, after all despite his 300+ apps he's still only 26, just a couple months older than Alisson who everyone is still expecting to grow better.

Ter Stegen ans Leno by the way have a badblooded rivalry or rather feud since their U16 days, Matthias Sammer used to describe it as Ter Stegen being Oliver Kahn's and Leno as Lehmann's heir. Not the worst keeper to be compared to

Exactly - Szczesny also pushed on once he left us after his career started to stagnate.

That said, we're not a club that tends to improve goalkeepers. Hopefully that's going to change

Yeah having Gerry Peyton as your coach was the equivalent of a doctor prescribing you growing doses of mercury. Expecting a sharp change of form in that respect

Leverkusen replaced him with Hradecky and have been looking to offload him. If that's not a warning sign I don't know what is.

Hradecky is the better keeper currently and on a better development curve, three or four years older too. To be fair to Leno he actually wanted to leave more than a year ago but wasn't allowed to because his club couldn't find a replacement.

22m is a bit steep for him to be honest considering Ederson cost about 30m. Would be expecting someone better for 22m. Currently Leno is about the level of Szczesny in my opinion so it's pretty much going back to the same level we are used to with keepers and not a major improvement (although anyone decent bar Cech will be good).

Wonder if we could have gone for someone like Lafont or Kepa for 22m?

Lafont would cost closer to £10m and sort our GK position for the next decade.

Clrnc wrote:

Currently Leno is about the level of Szczesny in my opinion so it's pretty much going back to the same level we are used to with keepers

If you're talking about current day Szcezny it's not going back to what we're used to. Arsenal Szczesny however...

Ray wrote:

Lafont would cost closer to £10m and sort our GK position for the next decade.

Agree, and I had put Lafont on my wishlist on another thread, but he won't come in and become a starter in our team today and I think that's what we are looking for. Lafont has to be bought with another keeper who can be first choice for a couple of years before he can take over.

I would be ok with Cech and Lafont rotating this season.

Lafont is where Leno was a few years ago and had a similar reputation. Surely you all see the irony?

I'd say the same if he looked like the next Buffon. Point stands.

Mirth wrote:

Lafont is where Leno was a few years ago and had a similar reputation. Surely you all see the irony?

If that's true then we should buy him. If it goes bad, he turns into Leno, and if it goes well he turns out much better. If we buy Leno, he turns into Leno either way.

I don't know anything about Lafont, but I can't bring myself to believe that there's a huge, obvious talent available for £10m and we choose to buy a 6/10 goalkeeper (based on what people on here are saying). We're not that blind. Either Lafont isn't that good, he isn't that cheap or Leno has got something that we don't see.

From what I've seen of Lafont, he looks a bit below average as far as starting Ligue 1 keepers are concerned. He'd almost certainly be a downgrade on what we have in the immediate term. He's ridiculously precocious, though, so his journey in football so far isn't necessarily inconsistent with him becoming a top player. It would be way more of a punt then some people are letting on, though.

As it relates to Leno, there's this:

Just what we need to cement our 6th place in the league position. Great stats for Europa too. I’ve heard he’s good mates with Fellaini too so hopefully he can help get that deal over the line

Diaby KungFu wrote:

As it relates to Leno, there's this:

I'm not sure how to read these stats. PostShotxG seems to be the expected goals based on some kind of total being taken into consideration, and Leno has conceded more than expected?

The deviation is small though. It's also interesting to see how it contrasts to a generally pretty high save percentage.

Klaus wrote:

Diaby KungFu wrote:

As it relates to Leno, there's this:

I'm not sure how to read these stats. PostShotxG seems to be the expected goals based on some kind of total being taken into consideration, and Leno has conceded more than expected?

What I'm assuming they've done is used Opta's Expected goals stat (it ranks every chance from 0.1 to 1.0 based on certain parameters, where 1.0 is a certain goal) and added together the xG stats of all the matches against Leverkusen throughout the season. After this they've probably subtracted every chance that wasn't a shot of target, as it wouldn't make sense to count shots off target and chances that didn't end up with a shot at all. So basically it's how many goals expected he's expected to let in based on the shots on target. It's actually a good stat for shotstopping, but it obviously doesn't take other goalkeeper aspects into consideration.

Edit: Here's the PL list for last season.

Saw the PL list a few weeks back and I think it's pretty much worthless.

Just done a quick google and found some more stats for keepers, not sure what the PostShotxG thing exactly means but suppose we can compare to others. Pics are from @colintrainor

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

He looks decent with the ball at his feet.

He looks really smooth and accurate with both feet.

Surprised to see criticism of that part of his game earlier in the thread. Even without watching loads of YouTube match videos in the last few days, I always thought general opinion held that he was another German goalkeeper with good feet?

He really isn't, it's his most consistent flaw. He's considered to be one of the last German "old-school" keepers who don't really know what to do with the ball at feet. Still better than Cech or probably half of the keepers in England but it's not a strength of his, definitely not at the level of Alisson Ederson or Ter Stegen.

More worried about his control of the D to be honest, it used to be one of his strengths and it might be that it's just because of the chaotic B04 defence but he looked a bit dodgy in recent years.

Big plus however is his penalty saving though. Best keeper in Germany at spot kicks bar none, what a contrast that'll be from seasons past

How is he in the air jones? I don't reckon you can be a good PL keeper without dominating on crosses and high balls.

That's what the second paragraph is about, maybe I worded it poorly. He used to be pretty good in the air, a massive step up from Adler who was his predecessor but seemed to have regressed or rather stagnated there as well.

The more I think about it the more I get the feeling he can reignite his career at a new club. Get it done now

Apparently Real are buying Alisson. Cancel this deal and get Navas.

jones wrote:

That's what the second paragraph is about, maybe I worded it poorly. He used to be pretty good in the air, a massive step up from Adler who was his predecessor but seemed to have regressed or rather stagnated there as well.

Cheers jonesy, I thought you meant the way he organised the defence.

I have to say I'm feeling quietly positive about Leno too the more I read about him. We once built our most successful generation by signing talented players who had tailed off and then awakening them. Henry, Vieira, Pires, Lehmann... they all flourished here because we showed belief in them. It could be that Leno just needs a new challenge.