The point I was trying to make is that if, as I thought you did and I certainly do, “you rate Mustafi over Holding”, then to me it’s odd to call Mustafi ‘average’ and Holding the watered down average ‘if I was being very harsh’.

Value for money, which I assume is behind your point about about Mustafi’s transfer fee, is something different in my view. But it was Arsenal’s decision to pay the fee we did, as it is for every bought player. The transfer fee wasn’t Mustafi’s fault.

No it doesn’t , he only played 9 games in the premier league last year and 13 in his whole career for us. That is no barometer to judge anything, Leno on the other hand has 67 appearances and only made 2 costly mistakes in that time. He’s at Aston Villa for a reason and not anybody bigger

I'm surprised at the Villa vs Leeds result. I hated Leeds before like just about any gooner. But I like the present incarnation of Leeds. Risen from the ashes, a proper club, storied history, chastened, clawing their way back to the pinnacle of the English league. A great story. Someone ought to do a docu on it.

Wow, Leeds is looking good. Unfortunately, their star players will likely leave them in the Jan transfer window.

I guessed right on that actually. But I thought Seaman was going to be the player for one of the answers.

You qualify it with costly. He has made a number of errors. Each is enough to unsettle our defence. That is costly. If you want to play out from the back you must move the ball quickly and accurately. He fails in the first step on a regular basis.

Hi Bernard, I see what you’re saying, I went back and re-read my post and saw that I put Mustafi in the first category. To be honest I wasn’t thinking too much as I was just reeling lists of players off the top of my head. If I gave it more considered thought I could rank each of those players by how much I want them to leave Arsenal and Mustafi wouldn’t be near the top of the list of players
I think Mustafi has improved under Arteta and I’m happy to have him as a back up CB whilst other areas of the team are being fixed but for me he isn’t a starter in a team looking for top 4.
Right now in a back 3 I think an argument could be made for our best back 3 being Mustafi/Luiz/Gabriel as it gets Luiz in the centre where he is more comfortable. Arteta probably see’s Luiz/Gabriel/Tierney

Martinez pushed a ball straight out to the Leeds striker to tap home. No different to what Leno did v City

The question may come down to is this. Could either keeper have caught the ball or had no choice but to parry the ball?

Speaking of Arsenal and politics / social justice. I was surprised to see this. NOT saying I'm against it, but surprised to some extent. The BLM matter is pretty much universal, with the league getting involved, but this is Arsenal on its own.
PS: Good luck to the Nigerian people. Sad to see this type of thing anywhere.

Classy from Arsenal. This isn't about taking sides on a political issue. Its about expressing solidarity with people who are being brutally oppressed.

To date Bernd Leno has made 2 mistakes that have cost Arsenal goals in 67 games. If that ratio is unacceptable then in the past this would have led to us probably selling David Seaman and definitely selling Jens Lehman.

He isn't as good with his feet as some but is a better shot stopper than most and has saved us on many occasions like Anfield the other week.

To replace Bernd Leno you would probably need to attain a player in the top 5-7% of all goalkeepers available if the things you are pointing at are unacceptable. Someone in the class of Manuel Neur or Thibaut Courtois who could cost 80-100 million quid. People need to wake up and get behind him. Feel sorry for the guy.

Yes, also 5 minutes after the goal at city Leno stops another point blank shot that was palmed to safety and prevented city going 2 up.

Arsenal fans after the game= Leno's cost us that one !!!!

People are searching for what they want to see. If it continues he will twig and his confidence will get shot to pieces.

Listing the best keepers I’ve seen at Arsenal I’d put Seaman and Jennings at the top. It’s arguable in which order, but as Jennings had his very best years at Tottenham I’ll put Pat second and Dave first. Having said that, at his peak I feel Jennings was better than Seaman was at his peak. But Seaman did make errors. Who can forget that semi-final against Tottenham at Wembley? I’d put Lehmann a close third but he made errors too, sadly in the club’s most important ever game the Champions League final.

But I have no hesitation in ranking Leno in fourth place with the potential to go even higher. He’s been a super keeper for Arsenal. I must admit, I don’t think there’s an awful lot to choose between Leno and Martinez with the ball at their feet. In my view Leno’s kicking isn’t nearly as bad as some make out.

Anyway, to make it a top six I’ll put Lukic fifth and Wilson sixth.

No place for Almunia then Bernard

Nor George Wood!

West Ham leading v Man City. They got a draw v spurs and comfortably beat Leicester and Wolves. Our victory of West Ham looking better each day

Liverpool has seemed virtually unbeatable for the last 2 years. City as well. They seemed only to be each other's roadblock. Now, and its still early days, but 5 matches in and they both seem a lot more 'normal'. Why is that? Did the Covid19 layoff change things? Something else?

Agree with every word of this. We've had some terrific keepers and I think you've rated them correctly IMO

Leno is amongst the least of our worries.

enjoyable post Bernard, Jennings was before my time. Seaman easily the best i've seen in my lifetime. Lukic very under rated. Not much between Leno and a prime Jens.

Leno least of our worries and anyone moaning about him clearly has forgotten about Almunia, ospina and Petr Čech who he was literally on the beach for 2 years when he played for us.

Thought Lukic was unlucky to be replaced by Seaman. But GG was proven right. And Lukic didn't do too badly at Leeds, winning another league title. I have a soft spot for Szczesny too. Was asked to step up as our no. 1 too early in his career I think. Not help by our shaky defence obviously.

Honourable mention must go to Jimmy Rimmer as well. Along with Alan Ball and Brian Kidd, Rimmer kept Arsenal in Division One for a couple of seasons in the mid 70s when we were truly rubbish. In much the same way as when Seaman replaced Lukic, there were lots of Arsenal fans who weren't happy with Jennings replacing Rimmer. Jennings was 32 years old when he signed and a lot of people thought he was finished. Turned out of course to be £45k very wisely spent. And Rimmer, like Lukic, went elsewhere and won a league title, in his case at Villa.

Happy to see Palace win. Proper London derby, even though the 'big 3' gets the limelight. Always had a soft spot for them. Zaha did well. Luka Milivojevic s decent and a great PK taker.

How has the ref not given a penalty against Maguire there. His arms are all over the chelsea player. Var not even looking at it either.

Sorry everyone one on here said that wasn’t a problem and he couldn’t be blamed v City. I am glad to see you acknowledge this as an error.

That is your assessment of 2 errors - not correct. Anyway Arteta has made the decision to keep him with no appropriate back up. So we had better hope he picks up his weaknesses.

Was it not, how do they say it "clear and obvious"?

Mike Riley stinking the place out. When are they going to replace him?

I know the real issue is that it should have been a penalty so it represents a bad decision. But a draw between Manchester United and Chelsea is arguably a better result for Arsenal than a Chelsea win would have been. Assuming they’d have scored the penalty, of course.

True Bernard, it was the best result for us for both teams to be dropping points. In fact if (and I realise it's a big if) we manage to beat Leicester later, our position will be better than could have been hoped for with the games we've had so far.

VAR is part of the circus. It is not about fairness. What makes it more galling is that Man Utd have been getting an extreme number of penalties for over 12 months now.

Nice try. I’m sure everyone realises that all I’m doing is highlighting that Martinez and Leno are quite similar. Whether it is deemed an error is irrespective to the argument. I just take issue with people’s opinions that Martinez is the far superior GK than Leno and Arsenal made a huge error selling him.

Talking of catching the ball old Flapianski was on form for The Hammers - several saves and holding onto the ball. Parry when necessary, but a keeper catching the ball sends confidence throughout a defence.

Yes well done, but it stands rather starkly in contrast to the Uighur situation?

Wilson behind Leno and Lukic - methinks not! Nay sir, never.

Watching Marr, have to say Marcus Rashford has done incredibly well to force his issue into public consciousness and it’s great watching MPs fumble their answers on it

Yes, there was a great keeper somewhere in there, and it may have been Arsene's backing of youth was a little too premature in the big boy's case. Having said that if not given the number one spot he may well have become frustrated and scarpered. What I loved about Bob Wilson was his willingness to fight for his place - he had to wait quite while to become first choice.

The kid is doing great - and he can play a bit. For me the most likeable United player since Bobby Charlton.

What is also glaring is that it seems its only the western, non Moslem nations making a fuss about the Uighur situation (a much too kind of a description) in China. Where are the predominantly moslem nations? Not sure if its Chinese money or Chinese power that has them looking the other way.

However, as you say, well done from The Arsenal regarding Nigeria.

Very impressive. So good to see cases like this which counter the stereotypes about footballers and young people more generally.

A matter of opinion, but mine is that Leno is comfortably ahead of Wilson and Lukic a bit in front of him. Wilson was extremely good when an opposition forward was through on him with a one on one.

What was Kelsey like? My dad always told me that he was a terrific keeper but as he stopped playing in 1962 the only time I saw him was running the stadium shop.