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‘Didn’t do enough’ – Pundit singles out Arsenal star for performance against Vorskla

By on September 21, 2018

Bernd-Leno-arsenal

BT Sport pundit Martin Keown says Bernd Leno didn’t do enough against Vorskla to force his way in to the Arsenal starting eleven on a regular basis just yet.

Leno has had to bide his time since joining the club from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer as Unai Emery has stuck with 36-year-old Petr Cech as his first choice goalkeeper in our five Premier League games so far.

The German stopper was finally handed his debut during our Europa League group stage opener on Thursday night and had very little to do against the Ukrainian minnows other than pick the ball out the net twice.

Arsenal cruised in to a 4-0 lead thanks to goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang [2], Danny Welbeck and Mesut Ozil but we switched off during the closing minutes of the match to allow Vorskla to score two superb goals to take some shine off the scoreline.

The goals were both excellent strikes and there wasn’t much Leno could have done to save either effort but Keown said after the game the keeper missed his chance to force his way past Cech for the No.1 shirt.

The former Arsenal defender is quoted by the Mirror as saying on BT Sport:

“I’m not sure anyone has done that tonight [shown they deserve to be in the first team],”

“Certainly not the goalkeeper. You can’t point blame at him for the goals, but if he pulled off a worldie save he might stay in the team.

“If he saved one of those goals you’d have to say he was quite brilliant. [If he] did nothing for the whole night but he pulled off two amazing saves, but he didn’t do that.”

Keown is probably right with his assessment as Leno wasn’t able to showcase his talents during last night’s game so it’s virtually impossible for Emery to stick with him in the league.

Vorskla barely offered a threat at goal until they scored their two superb late efforts. Sure, had he pulled off a worldie save to deny one of the goals he’d have caught the eye a bit more but they were practically un-savable so there’s not much more he could have done.

The 26-year-old did, however, prove last night that he’s far more comfortable with the ball at his feet and playing out from the back than Cech so hopefully that will give Emery some food for thought.