Seaman: Be patient, trust Wenger

Former goalkeeper David Seaman has urged Arsenal fans to have patience with what manager Arsène Wenger is trying to achieve at the club.

Morale amongst Arsenal fans is low at the moment, having suffered yet another defeat to arch rivals Manchester United, despite claims of having progressed from last year.

One of the areas which has disgruntled fans the most is the goalkeeping position, who many feel Wenger has failed to address since the departure of Jens Lehmann, who was Seaman's successor.

Many feel that current number one Manuel Almunia is not up to the task of being the first choice keeper at a club like Arsenal.

Seaman said: "Be patient and trust Arsène Wenger. I will always trust him because I know how good he is, and what he has done for the club.

"Alright, when he first came he had a great defence and he added bits to it, and now he has a side that plays fantastic football, it just needs to move on that step further because we need to win things.

"When I joined Arsenal we were expected to win things. But we were winning things playing boring football before Arsène Wenger came and Tottenham Hotspur were playing great football and winning nothing. I know Spurs still aren't winning things, but we are playing great football and not winning. This must be corrected.

"I have not discussed [who is the long-term number one] with Arsène. He is his own man. He was like that when I was there and Bob Wilson was my goalkeeping coach. He rarely listened to Bob! Ha Ha! Arsène picks his own goalkeepers.

"He loves statistics on goalkeepers, like spring and reaction time, and Fabianski is brilliant at that, and he tops the stats. But the one thing you do need is natural talent, and finding that is hard, but they have that at Arsenal.

"[Almunia] was never always going to be a failure, far from it. When I have seen him in training, he was far above and beyond the other goalkeepers at the club, whether or not he took his form in training onto the pitch on a Saturday could be debated.

"But he always looked brilliant on the training ground but the one problem with Manuel is that he is 33-years-old now, and he isn't even in Spain's top four goalkeepers, and that is hard for him because he is missing out on the experience that I got at international level.

"The step up from Arsenal to England, or Arsenal to Spain is a big leap, and then to play in a World Cup is an even bigger step. Unfortunately Manuel wasn't getting those kind of opportunities."

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