Not another Wenger blind spot

Steven Howard in today’s Sun no less, has piled onto the bandwagon marked ‘Arsenal goalkeeping crisis’ and let rip. Howard writes:

“They have four goalkeepers on the books - Vito Mannone, Manuel Almunia, Lukasz Fabianski and teen Wojciech Szczesny - and none, for one reason or other, look up to the job.”

before making the stunning claim

“In fact, you would be hard pushed to find a Premier League club WITHOUT a better keeper than the four at Arsenal.”

Well thespoiler has been scratching itself having a good think this morning, and we reckon maybe Chelsea and Birmingham City are the only clubs without a better keeper than Arsenal - your thoughts below please…

Arsenal keeper considers change of nationality

Hot on the heels of last week’s revelations that Sven-Goran Eriksson was eager to call-up Carlo Cudicini during his reign as England manager, attention has turned to the fact that Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia is eligible for a British passport in July. The debate is now about whether Fabio Capello should call-up the Spaniard if he becomes a British citizen.

Personally, I have never rated Almunia particularly highly and considering he will be 32 years old before he is eligible for a cap, calling him up seems a bit pointless. England goalkeepering coach Ray Clemence is leading the anti-Almunia camp. He said:

“I am sure Almunia would be happy to play for England, but he can’t get in the Spain squad, can he?

“I am for English goalkeepers in the English team - as simple as that. People have been saying for a number of years the English goalkeeping situation is in crisis. But now we have got six or seven, of which only one is over 30. So we are heading in the right direction.

“We have got some promising young lads. Joe Hart is playing exceptionally well for Manchester City week in, week out and Scott Carson is coming back to the form we know he can produce.”

Capello would have to steamroller this through over some considerable opposition on grounds of national pride. Portugal has Deco, Spain has Marcos Senna, and even Poland has Roger Guerreiro. Should we have a more flexible approach to nationality? Have a little vote and see what you think.