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Wojciech Szczesny voted Brentford’s Goalkeeper of the Decade

ByPhil Watson|

You only get one chance to make a first impression. In the case of goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny, he needed to 28 games to wow Brentford’s fans.

He wasn’t even really ever theirs.

But that didn’t stop fans of Brentford FC, a club that competes in England’s Football League Championship—the second tier of English soccer—from voting Wojciech Szczesny the club’s Goalkeeper of the Decade.

He played 28 games with Brentford while on loan from Arsenal in 2009-10 and made such an impression on fans that he won the voting for their best goalkeeper for the past 10 years.

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The 24-year-old was recently benched by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and has looked on as replacement David Ospina has notched four clean sheets in six games, allowing only three goals.

He has played in 177 matches for Arsenal across all competitions and has 22 caps and seven clean sheets while backstopping Poland’s national team.

He shared the Premier League Golden Glove  award with Petr Cech of Chelsea after tying for the Premier League lead with 16 clean sheets last season and helped the Gunners to the FA Cup and the FA Community Shield last season.

But this year has been a struggle for Szczesny. Not only has he been benched for an extended period—playing just once since New Year’s Day, in a 3-2 FA Cup win at Brighton—but he also incurred Wenger’s wrath for smoking in the showers after a 2-0 loss to Southampton on Jan. 1.

He was fined more than $38,000 for the smoking incident, but according to The Standard, Szczesny believes he will start Sunday when the Gunners take on Middlesbrough in a fifth-round match in the FA Cup.

And all is not rosy on the international front for Szczesny, either; according to The Daily Mail, Poland is looking at dropping him as the No. 1 goalkeeper for the national team in favor of Artur Boruc.

Boruc has 59 caps for Poland but lost the top spot to Szczesny when he became the starter for Arsenal.

The 34-year-old Boruc plays for Southampton, but is currently on loan to Bournemouth.

While Wenger has continued to insist publicly that Szczesny is his No. 1 keeper, his actions are indicating otherwise. Wenger is known for playing reserve stoppers in domestic cup competitions and saving his No. 1 for league play.

Since the first of the year, Ospina has started every Premier League match for Arsenal, while Szczesny played in an FA Cup match.

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