A cursory look at Arsenal’s squad for the upcoming season will inevitably come to the conclusion that the area that most needs improvement is in defence. Whether it be a change of personnel, a change in tactics, or a change in attitude, what is clear is that we cannot go into the season as we came out of it last season.

While it is by no means the only solution to our defensive woes, a change of personnel would be the most obvious change to satisfy our needs. With that in mind let’s take a look at where we stand in terms of defensive players, more precisely let’s start with goalkeepers.

First off Szczęsny looks like he will be Arsenal’s main custodian some time in the future, Arsène has said as much. He could be sent out on loan again this season, although Wojciech himself says he’d rather stay and fight for the No.1 jersey he’d be better off getting as much playing time under his belt as possible.

Mannone is the forgotten man in the goalkeeping set-up. It seems that he is in no man’s land. That is not to say that he isn’t highly regarded, but when Fabiański was brought in it was on the back of championship winning form an being goalkeeper of the year albeit in the Polish League.

So it’s fair to say that Fabiański is ahead of Mannone in the pecking order, however as a backup to the backup and looking at the 3rd choice of other teams Mannone is one of the best around. He certainly did not let us down when called upon last season.

Which brings us to the problem called Fabiański. Brought to Arsenal as the next big thing and rightly so. Arsène bought a player who was battling Artur Boruc for the Polish #1 jersey, suffice to say Fabiański ended up looking nowhere the goalkeeper he was expected to be. Yet unless Wenger buys a new keeper —something which looks increasingly unlikely— we are going to be stuck with Łukasz.

In defence of the Pole, his mistakes have all come in high profile important matches. What this says of his ability to play under pressure? We don’t know. He certainly talks the talk, but even I can admit that he does not instil confidence in those around him. The problem is he may turn out to be just what we needed, however it’s hard to see him learning his craft at a club that has ambitions of winning the league.

It is always possible that Fabiański can hit a run of form, or confidence that will make all our postulation count for nought. Players can always improve, it sometimes takes only 1 thing to click and turn you into a world beater. There are countless examples of sportsmen who were written off only to become great in their field. So don’t rule out Fabiański just yet.

The calls for Wenger to buy a new keeper is growing louder as we get closer to the end of the transfer window. The desperation has even lead to spurious reports of Mark Schwarzer handing in a transfer request, so great is his desire to join Arsenal. Other players being foisted on Arsenal includes any of the 2 at Manchester City, knowing that none of Given or Hart would be willing to sit on the bench at the eastlands it is easy to say we’ll take any.

The question is will any of those improve our goals against figure?

There are arguments to say we would be better off with either of the afore mentioned 3, there are equally strong arguments to say they won’t improve the team. The accusation is that, Almunia whilst no doubt a very good goalkeeper will cost us more points than he will win us. That accusation can also be levelled Given, Schwarzer and Hart. All have made mistakes that are worse than what we’ve seen from Almunia.

It comes down to a simple numbers game, take all the points saved though excellent goalkeeping and remove from that all the points lost by shoddy work, whoever has the most points is the better goalie. I don’t have those numbers but I am sure they are available to Wenger. I’ll put my hands up and say I was wrong, but until someone shows me those figures I will argue that Almunia is not worse than any of our “targets”. Everything else is conjecture and bias.

I would conclude that the best goalkeepers out there, the kind that can really make a difference to our title aspirations, are not available at the kind of figures Arsenal is willing to work with. If we cannot get the best of the best, then it’s no use spending on players that are at best marginally better than the incumbents.