Unai Emery Warns Bernd Leno That He’ll Have To Wait For His Chance

By The Editor
on 12th August 2018

Unai Emery warns Bernd Leno that he may have to wait for his debut…

Unai Emery surprised a few when he decided to start Petr Cech ahead of summer signing Bernd Leno in our opening day defeat to Manchester City on Sunday.

Leno, who joined from Bayer Leverkusen for a fee in the region of £19.3m, was at the time the goalkeeper who commanded the third highest transfer fee in English history.

Also, with an insistence in pre-season to play out from the back – starting with the goalkeeper – many though Leno would be the obvious choice given his comfort in possession.

However, Emery stuck with the experienced Cech and despite some hairy moments in possession, he felt the 35-year-old had a good performance and warned Leno that he’ll have to wait for his chance.

“We want competence with the goalkeepers and all the players in the squad,” Emery explained (via HaytersTV).

“The position is the same as the others and there is the same chances for all the goalkeepers.

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“Today, Cech played good. And he has this experience of defending our goal. Leno is starting with us. He is working very well, he played also well in pre-season. But he can wait to arrive his moment.”

With such a gruelling start to the Premier League, perhaps Emery decided to go with experience for the opening two fixtures and plans to ease Leno in when the schedule becomes more favourable.

One does wonder, though, given that we now have a head of recruitment – who’s in charge of bringing players in – if Leno was ever Emery’s choice.

We’ve seen similar situations occur at other clubs though it would be a first at Arsenal and a consequence of the post-Wenger era.