Arsenal’s long-time transfer target, Bernd Leno, has reportedly told Bayer Leverkusen that he plans on leaving this summer. This is a major boost for the North London outfit who will have to fight it out with Liverpool, Atletico Madrid and Napoli for the 26-year-old’s services.
Leno will reportedly cost the Gunners £17.5m or more depending on the interest shown by the other interested parties. An affordable sum in the market where players are getting traded for obscene amounts of cash.
Leno’s talents like that of many other top-pedigree German goalkeepers has been overshadowed by the dominance of Bayern Munich’s, Manuel Neuer. The latter is almost an uncontested number one for the German national team and this has left little space for players like Leno to grow into household names. Which is why he might cost so much lesser than Atletico Madrid’s Jan Oblak, whose release clause alone is worth over £88m. It would be foolish to overlook the Bayer Leverkusen shot-stopper who has been breaking waves in the Bundesliga for the last 7 years.
Leno embarked on his journey of a professional footballer with VfB Stuttgart and went on to make his Bundesliga debut against Werder Bremen while serving a loan-spell with Leverkusen. At 19, he became the youngest goalkeeper to appear in a UEFA Champions League match, when Leverkusen took on Chelsea in the group stages. He also became the third goalkeeper in the Bundesliga to maintain three clean sheets in his first three matches.
Despite the cemented wall in front of him, Leno has managed to fight his way to 6 caps for the national team and has racked up over 300 appearances for Die Werkself, just one shy of a 100 clean sheets.
Currently, he is way below the pecking order in the German national team. Barcelona’s Andre Ter Stegen seems to be the next in line behind Neuer and Paris Saint-Germain’s Kevin Trapp is also a considerable threat. Of course, the latter has not featured much for the Ligue 1 outfit this season and Neuer is still nursing that season-long knee injury.
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There might be a slim chance for Leno to feature in the 2018 FIFA World Cup but it cannot be said for certain that he will travel to Russia. Do not let that cloud your judgement of the 6 feet 3 inches shot-stopper who could more than easily fill the boots of Petr Cech at the Emirates. He is as athletic as any top-flight number 1 shot-stopper should be and has a remarkable ability to anticipate opposition attacks.
