As we sit in the middle of yet another pointless interlull, I thought it might be an idea to have a look at the Arsenal squad and see how they’ve been doing this season so far.

Let’s start with the goalkeepers.

Petr Cech 6

At times this season Petr Cech has shown glimpses of the keeper who starred for Chelsea for so long but 18/19 will go down as the season he finally stopped being a top club number one.

Cech wants to play until he’s 40 and there is no reason, physically, he can’t do that. He won’t, however, be able to do that a top-six club.

That means he will find himself with a choice to make this season as his Arsenal contract runs out – stay as number two or drop down to become number one again?

Of course, that all assumes that he will be offered a new contract by the club, and that certainly cannot be assumed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTV-6qhwXd8

For the rest of the season at Arsenal, Cech will play the role of cup keeper and backup to Bernd Leno and Unai Emery deserves praise for how he has handled the situation. Everyone assumed that Leno would usurp Cech automatically under the new coach, but the Spaniard gave Cech a chance to prove himself before taking the number one shirt away from him.

Bernd Leno 7.5

When he was purchased from Bayer Leverkusen for £22.5m in the summer, the common consensus was that he was coming to be the immediate number one. Unai Emery, as I noted previously, eased him in and waited for the perfect opportunity to make him the number one and when he was handed his chance due to Cech’s injury, he made sure to take it.

The best thing about all this is that Arsenal now have two keepers who genuinely feel they should be number one and that will only help them focus and perform better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J66SmMcYSw

Leno has impressed in his limited time in England so far. Sure, he’s made mistakes, but he tends to make more saves and I like that in a keeper.

Arsenal might have conceded nine goals in 10 games with him between the sticks this season, but he’s also managed to keep three cleansheets and, at Arsenal, those are rarer than a unicorn holding a winning lotto ticket. It would be unfair to blame him for Arsenal’s poor defence and, as we saw against Wolves, without him, things might have been much, much worse.

Emiliano Martinez 4

It might seem rough to give someone who isn’t playing a ‘4’ but that’s exactly why he’s getting it.

Emi Martinez must surely be approaching a crunch decision. He’s 26 now, an age by which some of his peers had already established themselves as their respective clubs’ number one.

Martinez has not even come close to doing that.

There’s no doubting that Martinez has looked decent when he’s been given a chance, but that’s all he’s really been – decent. That’s good enough for a club lower down the football pyramid, but it will never get him the number one shirt at Arsenal, at least not while someone like Leno is at the club.

That he can’t even push past Petr Cech who is well into the twilight of his career speaks volumes but the previous regime placed a lot of faith in him, awarding him a contract until 2022.

So far this season, he has one Premier League 2 appearance to his name. He is the same age as Leno who has 314 senior appearances to his name with Bayer Leverkusen and Arsenal.

Martinez has 19 with Arsenal and Getafe plus 39 with Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham United and Oxford United.