Manuel Almunia — One More Chance
|When Arsene Wenger revealed that the goalkeeper who started at Anfield on August 15th would be Arsenal’s no.1 for the 2010/11 campaign, most Gooners began to worry.
The Gunners chief failed to land Fulham’s Mark Schwarzer despite a summer of interest, while Almunia had admitted that the possible imminent arrival of another experienced goalkeeper at Arsenal would be unsettling.
Speaking to reporters earlier today, Wenger heaped the praise on Arsenal’s Spanish ‘keeper, stating that Almunia has “done extremely well” given the circumstances.
“I believe that when you play for Arsenal – and you just said to me you would be ready to walk on your knees to play for Arsenal – I can’t feel too sorry for the players who play for Arsenal.
“I believe you have to deal with competition. That’s part of our job. And he (Almunia) has done extremely well.
“I give a lot of credit to Almunia and (Lukasz) Fabianski, during all this period they have coped very well with the pressure and the uncertainty and now they should deal even better with the situation because they know they will play.”
Most Arsenal fans would say it’s a case of ‘one more chance’ for Manuel Almunia this season. The YouTube compilation below superbly depicts that theory.
Do you agree that Almunia should be given one more chance? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
Fair play, nice to see someone posting something vaguely positive about Almunia. Rather than the suicidal rubbish that has inundated blogs and forums since the window closed.
GOD HELP US ALL !!!! I know its sh*t boys but lets get behind him hey … at least if he f*cks up again he cant say its because the fans were on his back. COME ON THE GUNNERS !!!!!!
hes a good goalkeeper i agree with Stewart robson almunia gets unfair stick and arsenal can win the title with almunia we jsut need to improve our defence.
We conceded too many goals from defenders rather than mistakes from our goalkeepers.
Almunia i cant even remeber 2 msitakes he has done in the premiership i can oinly think of one which led to a goal ie the birmingham.
And when ppl say hes not commanding they are blind. THIS GUY IS 6FT 4/5 HES HUGE GUY WHO IS VERY BRAVE CATCHES ALOT OF BALLS UNDER PRESSURE HIS PROBLEM IS DECISION MAKING
Say what you want about Almunia, his record with saving penalties is pretty impressive. Also, he has never made two disastrous high-profile errors in such quick succession that Pepe Reina has made in his last few games this season (against us in the season opener and that hilarious slip against Argentina…how he let Tevez catch up and score was truly fantastic to watch).
That said, he will always make me nervous whenever there is a near post involved. But not nearly as nervous as the thought of Fabianski in goal.
He’ll never be world class but he made what 4-5 pretty bad mistakes last year? He also saved a bunch of pens so the negatives which the Suicide brigade bang on about non stop don’t really outweight the points he potentially saved us last year. But don’t let them hear you say that, they’ll p1ss their knickers in no time
I am backing him. To pick up on the blogger’s point, there is a chance that Almunia has been suitably chastised to raise his game and maybe he’ll make the PFA team at the end of the season!
Almunia is actually a fantastic goalkeeper. His lack of confidence is a product of unnecessary exposure-a byproduct of Arsenal’s style of play. It was something Lehman suffered to and if we had gotten Schwarzer, something he will suffer too. When Morinho left Chelsea, I saw Chec keeping like a rookie.
A little sense pls. Our keepers simply need more protection and Wenger knows this.
Almunia is not to be blamed. Improve the back four and he will be even better.His only weakness is that he sometimes is caught off guard probably misjudging the flow of the attacking teams.You could always give another chance indeed.
Most of his good saves were when his hair was dyed blond. Perhaps he should dye his hair blond again!!!
damn, this video makes almunia look like a world class keeper! lol
I like him as a person he is nice and very cool player , but it’s not enough this video show some great save but this is not enough for big club like Arsenal we could had won EPL or CL in the past 6 years if we had guys like Given or Van der Sar or Buffon or Casillas or Valdes those guys save 8 out of 10 good shots. We need some one who is not panic and calm and save us in the last minutes from losing point or exiting from Champion League that’s the kind of guy we need I had always said that time and time last year to buy Hart while he is not favorite in City now we will never get him. He look like young Casillas is not as good he is very close… such a talent player
Can somebody pls tell wenger to offload flappyclown back to poland.
When you compiled a video like this for all goalkeeper, everyone looks fantastic. Some goals conceded were due his lack positioning sense. With a little better positioning, he could have save many of those. He’s good but just not good enough. Our back four ain’t great but with a commanding and well positioned GK around, some goals can be avoided.
Whether I agree or not, it makes no difference. I just hope he can play like he played in the first half against barca…….not much to ask for……is it?
nice to see so many comments backing the guy. I’ve felt like I’ve been whispering into a hurricane talking positively about him. fair enough there are better goalies out there but there pretty well entrenched in clubs and would be out of our price range. all keepers make mistakes that’s what happens otherwise there would be very few goals in football if that were the case
Are you lot for real? He is the worst goalkeeper we have had in living memory!!!!
ive seen a few have sed we need a better defence n i disagree we have one of the best defence in the league n yes almunia is a great goalie but we need someone fresh to take over him and we may get the league back in next 3 seasons cos truthfully were not gonna this season
We can win the league with almunia.now we’ve got rid of gallas and silvestre and Campbell and replaced them with better defenders u’ll see almunia get his confidence back.have all the doom mongers forgotten barca at home.he kept us in that game,he gave a world class display that night and he’s started this season in excellent form.I personally think we’re better with almunia that schwarzer.and when manny and fabregas lift the premier league trophy aT the end of this season,maybe you lot will give the guy some credit which he deserves.
If you look at his video, he was full of confidence last time. Now his confidence is at the lowest level. I urge all fans to chant his name during the Bolton game and boost his confidence. Show him that we are all supporting him and hopefully he will return to his best form.
Like it or not he is Arsenal No. 01 .. True supporters please back him
man, he did ntg to stop elmanders goal!!!.. why do our defense always hurt us 🙁
Anyone who thinks he’s to blame for the Bolton goal knows precisely c0ck all about football
We haven’t got a choice but to support him, apart from the Liverpool goal, he has been alright. Our defence was a bit shaky yesterday but that should improve as they get use to each other.