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Szczesny: I Was Getting Very Bored In Goal

By mac14 on October 2, 2013

While Arsenal were tearing Napoli a new one last night in our Champions League Group F qualifier, one player was left watching the game ‘like a fan’.

Wojciech Szczesny was a virtual by-stander during the opening 45 minutes as we set about dismantling the Italians defence with some wonderful football which culminated in goals for Mesut Ozil and Olivier Giroud.

The goalkeeper was as impressed as anyone else with the standard of football on show and he claims he was left watching the game like a fan, to the extent that he started to get bored at the inactivity at his end of the pitch!

He told Arsenal.com:

“I think for the first half an hour… I don’t remember playing like that for a long time, not just this season,”

“I was like one of the fans behind the goal, just watching the game, and I couldn’t believe what was going on. We must have a couple of decent players or something! It was very enjoyable to watch.

“I think we had a very strong start, I was getting very bored in goal to be honest for the first half an hour! We were fantastic I thought, we got an early lead and then it was just a matter of defending well and making sure that we did our job correctly, and we did that.”

Obviously this is slightly tongue-in-cheek stuff from Szczesny, but it must be difficult for a keeper to maintain his concentration when he barely touches the ball for long periods.

It was certainly one of the best 45 minutes of football I can remember from Arsenal in recent memory and it’s no surprise Mesut Ozil was at the heart of it.

He’s taken us to another level and while Szczesny says it was great to see the playmaker open his account with a well taken goal, he thinks there is plenty more to come from the German.

“Obviously it was good to see him scoring,” he said. “We all know about his assists over the last few years and he got one today as well, but it’s important for him to get confident, to score some goals.

“We’ve seen him in training and he can do that, he’s a good finisher. We can expect a little bit more of that from him.”

The scary thing is I don’t think we’ve even seen half of what Ozil is capable of. Once he’s fully settled with his team mates and our style of play, we’ll see the best of him. And once Cazorla, Walcott and Podolski are back fit again, it’s going to be a joy to see them all play together.