Arsenal reportedly hold significant interest in Bayer Leverkusen’s Bernd Leno. In the wake of a potential move, here is an overview of his abilities.
Bernd Leno is one of the great German goalkeepers and the player is close to making a move to the Premier League according to the latest transfer rumours.
Arsenal are reportedly looking at the 25-year-old goalkeeper who started his career in the youth ranks at Stuttgart. He joined Bayer Leverkusen on loan in 2011 before the club made his move permanent with a transfer in January 2012 for €7.5million.
The German international made 42 appearances for Bayer Laverkusen last season and kept a clean sheet nine times. His number of clean sheets was certainly influenced by a poor season for the whole team as Bayer Leverkusen finished just 12th in the Bundesliga.
Strengths
Leno has great reflexes and they’re possibly his greatest asset. He is very quick to react to incoming shots and some of his close range saves have been nothing short of magnificent.
His bravery is also very admirable as Leno dives head first in some situations where others wouldn’t put their legs in. The best evidence of this are some of his saves from this season where he stopped the shot with his face and the goalkeeper ended up wearing a mask after picking up a facial injury.
Weaknesses
His main weakness is ball distribution and Leno has a 63.2% successful pass rate. With an average of 18.85 passes per game, it perhaps isn’t such a bad rate, but his long balls do often miss their target.
Another unsettling fact is the number of saves per-goal. The German makes just 1.48 saves for every goal conceded. To put that in perspective, Petr Cech makes 2.64 saves before he concedes and Wojciech Szczesny makes 2.45 saves per-goal.
Potential at Arsenal
At a stronger club like Arsenal, Leno would certainly get more cover from his defenders and improve his goalkeeping stats, but at the moment, his numbers are way to low for the player to have a chance of taking the starting spot from Petr Cech.
At 25-years-of-age, Leno still has his best years ahead of him, and with the influence of a more experienced goalkeeper like Cech he could significantly improve and fulfil his talent.
His contract with Leverkusen runs until 2020 and the player is believed to be available for around €20-25m.
His quality has been acknowledged even by Joachim Lew, as Leno made four senior appearances for German national team.
Given the right support and conditions to grow and develop as a player, Leno is sure to continue the tradition of other great German goalkeepers.
Best saves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0vdysuXlR4