History of the Arsenal Keeper

Arsenal signed Petr Cech from Chelsea in the summer of 2015 for £10 million. Since then the club have lifted the FA Cup against Chelsea, and twice beaten his former club to the Community Shield.

A calm player with an outstanding knowledge of the game, he can speak multiple languages and has won every club trophy that can be won. However, at 35, theres no doubt that Petr’s best years are behind him.

While he is still undoubtedly Arsenals number one keeper, how does this Premier League legend stack up to Arsenal goalkeepers through the years?

While there have been some trophy winning keepers with Arsenal over the Premier League era, such as Alex Manninger, Stuart Taylor and Richard Wright, these stats will look at some of the stoppers who made a few more appearances in the Arsenal goal over the years.

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough reliable data to determine David Seaman’s goalkeeping stats, but there’s no doubt that he is one of the greatest goalkeepers the club has ever seen, making 605 appearances and winning eight trophies.

Goals Conceded

During his time with The Gunners, Cech has averaged 1.04 Goals Conceded per game. Considering some hammerings Arsenal have been involved in in recent years, that’s not bad going.

He’s not the worst for goals conceded per game, that unfortunate honour rests with Wojciech Szczesny, who averaged 1.17 goals conceded for Arsenal every league game. However, Cech also isn’t the best, with invincible Jens Lehmann conceding only a staggering 92 goals in 148 appearances, at 0.62 per game.

Two other Arsenal goalkeepers have conceded fewer goals that games played in recent years. David Ospina concedes an average of 0.83 per game, while Manuel Almunia conceded only 0.82 per game (Honest).

Clean Sheets

There are other important stats that a keeper can be judged on. Cech is second only to David Ospina in the clean sheet charts, scoring 0.39 clean sheets per game, in comparison to the Colombians 0.42

Manuel Almunia recorded the fewest clean sheets per game, with 0.35 (much more like it). This only just pipped Szczesny and Lehmann, who recorded 0.36 and 0.37 respectively.

It should be noted that Lukasz Fabianski is also being considered here, but he is smack down the middle for both goals conceded (1.06) and clean sheets (0.38).

It appears then that Petr Cech, despite his occasional flaws, is in good company at Arsenal. He has had the odd lapse in concentration since his time in North London, but of the other names mentioned, who hasn’t?

Not the strongest for clean sheets, nor is he keeping every shot out, but a dependable keeper with a brain for the game, Cech is certainly still one of the strongest keepers in the league.

The Vital Statistic?

However, there is one statistic that cannot be overlooked. Using Cech and Szczesny as examples due to their completely differing playing styles, Arsenal score 1.82 goals per game with Cech between the sticks, but 1.89 with the Pole.

There are several factors that could cause this, but there is an argument to be made that Szczesny’s sweeper-like ability allowed the entire Arsenal side to sit higher up the pitch. With more freedom for full-backs to overlap and the attacking players free to sit and do their job, more goals were scored under Szczesny.

It goes to show that while Cech certainly is one of the best at keeping goals out at one end, the modern day keeper has to do an awful lot more than that, if the side want to continuing scoring plenty at the other.