Who’s #1, Leno or Martinez?

There is so much going at Arsenal Football Club at the moment. The transfer market, contract negotiations and staffing cutbacks…just to name a few.
For those of us who closely follow this club on an hour-by-hour basis, we know one of the biggest decisions Mikel Arteta will have to make in the next few weeks will be the selection of his #1 keeper.

Will it be Bernd Leno, or will it be Emiliano Martinez?

Currently on YankeeGooner.net, we are running a poll asking that exact question. As I write this post, here is how the voting stands…
Martinez – 78%
Leno – 22%

(FYI…the poll will be left open for a few more days.)

Now, a lot of coaches and managers at the highest levels of their sport will tell you a player should never lose his starting position due to injury. There are a lot of people who will agree with this argument. And, of course, there are many others who think a starting position should be decided by the overall performances of those contending for the job.

Let’s look at several of Leno and Martinez’s goalkeeping stats from this season…
Leno – 30 games started – 39 goals allowed – 110 saves – .776 save %
Martinez – 8 games started – 9 goals allowed – 33 saves – .810 save %

Let’s also take a look at these unedited, and very different replies to our poll question. These are from two of our loyal Yankee Gooner readers…

Reader #1…
No doubt emiliano martinez is the best out of the two. Also, he is from Hale end, Arsenal’s academy. He left Argentina at 17 years to come to uk in pursuit of his football career without any family and he endured six loan adventures before finaly been here. so he deserve every right to stand and lay claim too want to be No 1 at Arsenal. He is 27 and leno is 28. He grown up and develop at the club with the club doctrine, values and philosophy unlike leno who joined us at last year at 27 and now 28. Emi has better resale value too leno. Arsenal as a club need cash injections to fund our current transfer leno is an european keeper he will likely fetch Arsenal more money.

Reader #2…
As for me Martinez is no were to be Compared with leno Leno is A World Class Gk nt bec of the Leaky defencive shores in front of him didnt u guys noticed that after this locked down break Some Players like Maitland Luiz Mustafi kolasinac Bellerin they changed and added a little strong defence to Martinez bt if Martinez Were the gk that time bef the lock down break that we were esperiencing difficulties in our defence he wouldn’t has been Successful as he is Now just check it and reply.

At the end of the day, the only real opinion that matters will be Mikel Arteta’s. However, from where I sit, Martinez leads the poll voting, he has an edge in statistics, he came in cold very late in the season to assume the #1 spot and excelled, and he was in goal for the three biggest wins of the club’s season, including the FA Cup Final.

As much as I admire the skills and abilities of Bernd Leno, I would have to cast my vote, at this point in time, for Emiliano Martinez. His time has come, and I believe it’s now his job to lose.

Please continue to vote, and add a comment as well. We love hearing from our readers.

Cheers, stay safe and healthy!

Gunner1953