By Jack Gray
Arsene Wenger’s reluctance to buy a goalkeeper may have already cost Arsenal the chance of progressing into the knock-out stage of the Champions League and catching Manchester United in the Premiership.
Unless Wenger buys a keeper, Arsenal may not even finish second in the league. David Seaman is a has-been. Alex Manninger is never going to be a top-class goalkeeper, which Wenger knows. He always brings Seaman back into the team as soon as he has recovered from an injury.
Seaman was a great keeper but now he too injury-prone.He has had Safe Hands accepted by the Patent Office as his trademark, but he is no longer safe.
Seaman is no Bruce Grobbelaar, who would come for every cross. Grobbelaar would drop some, but at least defenders knew he was going to go for the cross. Arsenal defenders never know what Seaman is going to do.
He cost Arsenal two points last year at Old Trafford, when they drew 1-1, after Freddie Ljungberg gave them an early lead. He flapped at Giggs cross before Teddy Sheringham scored.
Wenger knows this. Before the start of this season, Wenger said he wanted to encourage Seaman to come for crosses.
So what happens? In this year’s pre-season tournament in Ajax, Seaman fails to meet a corner, and Barcelonas Philip Cocu headed into an empty net. For good measure he then repeated the trick in the first game at Sunderland and allowed Niall Quinn to score.
Seaman’s latest gesture is to smack his hand down on the floor after he lets in a goal, blaming the defensive wall or defenders. Wenger has been loyal to him. He should have sold him in September 1998 when Italian side Roma were reportedly willing to pay $5 million.
Alex Ferguson would probably have sold Seaman. He sold Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis to build a better team.
Wenger says that Manninger is getting his confidence back. His performances donít reflect this.
Before his first game back against Everton, Wenger said this of Manninger, “I saw he had a confidence problem, worrying about his knee. He was concentrating so much on his injury that he didn’t push himself. But we put him into the reserve team and he was surprised how well he felt. Now he knows his knee is OK. I had a long chat with him to convince him. He has got clearance from the doctor, who sees 2,000 knees per year. He is a worrier, but he has the potential to become our No1 when Seaman is no longer playing. That is why I bought him a few years ago.”
After the Leicester, game Wenger said, “Alexs confidence is a problem for us at the moment but I am not planning on bringing anyone else in. We will work on Manninger in training, give him encouragement and help to rebuild his self-belief. The problem for any goalkeeper is that any mistake is heavily punished but at least Alex knows the goal he conceded against Leicester did not cost us dearly in the end.”
Wenger cannot rely on Manninger. The Arsenal defenders donít feel comfortable with him in goal. Never have. Never will. That lack of confidence then filters through to the rest of the team. They look edgy. He will never be Arsenalís number one. When he replaced Seaman and Arsenal went on to win the championship, he made some fine saves. BUT many of them were because of his initial mistake. He is remembered for his header away at Wimbledon in March 1998, when Arsenal were leading through a Christopher Wreh goal. Kenny Cunningham crossed, Manninger could only claw it out, and Marcus Gayle met it with his head. Manninger redeemed himself with a tip over the bar.
Manninger is a shot-stopper who does not command the box. More often than not, he parries the ball rather than catching it. But he parries the ball out IN FRONT of the goal, NOT to the side. As against Tottenham when Rebrov scored, and Liverpool, when Owen scored to make it 2-0, when Arsenal were dominating the game.
Manninger doesn’t know when to come off his line.
Arsenal might have done the triple in 1998 had Manninger not wandered off his line to allow Mark Hughes to score in a one-sided League Cup semi-final at Highbury. 2-0 became 2-1 and Arsenal got beaten 3-1 in the second leg. He did the same this year in Moscow, but they did not score. Also in 1998, in the FA Cup, after leading 2-0 at Middlesbrough, then a First Division side, Manninger rushed off his line to a long ball. Merson rounded him before slotting the ball home from near the right corner of the penalty area.
Clearly, goalkeepers need experience.If Wenger really thought that Manninger would make it at Arsenal, he would have sent him out on loan. Goalkeeper is the one position that requires experience, and you can only get that from playing. Wenger should have sent Manninger on loan to another club, as he has done with Cole, Upson and Barrett.
The Austrian often goes down too quickly.Instead of making the forward decide where to shoot, Manninger helps him by going to ground. He went down too early when Nicky Barmby and Robbie Fowler scored for Liverpool.
He makes mistakes that put pressure on the rest of the team, as he did last week against Leicester, and last year against Wimbledon at home. And, more importantly, from the Scholl free-kick against the Bayern Munich.
He was not at fault for Sunderlandís two goals on Saturday (a Phillips penalty and a McCann curler when Vieira was dispossessed) but he spilled a simple low cross in alarming fashion when the score was 1-0. That blunder was not costly. Others will be.
30th December 2000.