Cech is underperforming, and Szczęsny is doing great.

Should Wojciech Szczęsny Have Been Sold?

The Gunners sold the goalkeeper from Poland to Juventus last summer, but Szczęsny has gone on to make waves as a stand-in for No.1 Gianluigi Buffon, while the Arsenal first-choice, Petr Cech, has seen his form questioned.

The wait for Cech’s 200th Premier League clean sheet went on over the weekend as Arsenal suffered a loss of 1 - 0 against Tottenham. The Gunner’s No. 1 has not been able to keep a clean sheet since the middle of December, in the 1 - 0 win over Newcastle that punters who’d backed Arsenal thanks to the online betting NZ provides will remember. As Harry Kane powered home the 23rd league goal of this season on Saturday, the look of agony on the 35-year old player’s face was plain for all to see.

A Good Game for Cech Anyway

However, although he conceded at Wembley, the north London derby on Saturday was, believe it or not, one of Cech’s better performances. He was named man of the match at WhoScored.com, with a rating of 8.15, and it was the heroics he performed between the sticks that gave his team a fighting chance of emerging from the match with some kind of result.

Indeed, this almost happened late in the game, only for Lacazette to drag an effort wide in injury time against the run of the play. The issue, however, is that Cech’s poorer performances are starting to outweigh the good.

The Most Errors this Season

Over the course of this season alone, not a single other player has managed to commit more errors that have gone on to result in a goal for the opposition than Cech has. He has the dubious record of four in a total of 27 appearances in Europe's Top Five leagues.

In comparison, Wojciech Szczęsny has committed only three in 84 Serie A outings in the last two-and-a-half years, and none of these have come in over the course of this campaign. Of course one has to take into account that Szczęsny is working from behind the formidable defence of Juventus, but Roma were also far from solid in his second full season in the capital. They conceded 38 goals to Arsenal’s 44 in the campaign of 2016/2017.

Comparing Szczęsny and Cech

Since Szczęsny left the Gunners to join Roma on loan in 2015, the Pole has faced, on average, 2.71 shots per game in comparison to Cech’s 2.93.

Over that same period they have a success rate that is relatively similar. Szczęsny edges it at 74.8% to Cech’s 73.8%, and this season looks likely to tell a similar tale, with Szczęsny standing at 66.7% and Cech at 66.3%.

For the watertight backline Juventus has in place only six of the 15 league goals they have conceded over this term have come in the 12 games that Szczęsny began. While, with Cech, in goal position, Arsenal have conceded a total of 36 times. This is worryingly more than any of the other teams in the Premier League’s Top Six.