Top 5 Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets Of All Time In Premier League
The Premier League is full of drama and goals! But as much as we all want to see goals, have you ever thought of which goalkeepers have managed to keep the most clean sheets? If so, you must have been wondering who the top 5 Arsenal goalkeepers with most clean sheets of all time are. Over here we have compiled the names of Arsenal shot-stoppers who has recorded the most clean sheets tally in the Premier League. Watch & Bet Football Here =>
So who are the top 5 Arsenal goalkeepers with most clean sheets of all time? Which goalkeepers have been the best shot-stoppers at Arsenal? The list includes all Arsenal goalkeepers from both the League era and the Premier League era.
Top Five Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets Of All Time
Here are the top 5 AArsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets ever in Premier League. (+ stands for clean sheets as a substitute goalkeeper)
The list was taken from the official Arsenal website. It was compiled back in 2015 and to this day it holds true because all the players listed below have retired long before.
5. Pat Jennings – 107- Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets
The Irish goalkeeper was Tottenham’s custodian for 13 years before spending eight years with Arsenal. Others who have crossed the divide tend to be loved and hated in equal measure, but not Jennings. He can expect a warm welcome whether he strolls around White Hart Lane or Emirates Stadium.
The reason is simple. Jennings is one of the finest players ever to pull on a pair of goalkeeping gloves. He won a record 119 caps for Northern Ireland in an international career which spanned 22 years, he played more than 1,000 games at the top level, was named Footballer of the Year in 1973, won five major trophies, received an MBE and an OBE and even scored a goal in the 1967 Charity Shield.
Calm and assured, Jennings was blessed with a positional sense which meant he barely needed to resort to the spectacular. He was simply in the right place at the right time to pluck crosses out of the air or push shots aside. Jennings was a master of the one-on-one, standing up long enough to narrow the angle and make things as difficult as possible for onrushing strikers.
Jennings’ biggest connection to Arsenal before 1977 was the role he played when the Gunners clinched the first half of their League and Cup Double in 1971. The Irishman was in goal when Ray Kennedy’s header flew past him at White Hart Lane as Arsenal famously wrapped up the title. Within six years he would be playing alongside some of those former rivals.
His long career ended in style with an appearance, at the age of 40, at the World Cup Finals in Mexico. It was a fitting finale for one of football’s greatest goalkeepers.
4. James Ashcroft Is One Of The Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets – 108- Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets
James Ashcroft played for Arsenal when they were still known as Woolwich Arsenal, almost near to their founding years. He was born in Liverpool and started playing with many local sides.
The former goalkeeper was spotted by the Gunners and signed in June 1900. Ashcroft maintained 17 cleansheets in 34 league games in his second season and 20 in the next one to help his team gain promotion to the First Division.
He finished his 8-year career at North London with 303 first-class appearances, before moving on to Blackburn Rovers and then to Tranmere Rovers. He also earned 3 caps for England.
3. John Lukic – 114- Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets
John Lukic played for only two clubs during his playing career – Leeds United and Arsenal but switched between both sides a couple of times.
He started out at Yorkshire, having signed there as a schoolboy and allowed to make his debut in 1979. He appeared in 165 games before filling for a transfer request and moving to Arsenal 4 seasons later for £75,000.
Lukic was signed as a long-term replacement for another legendary Arsenal keeper, Pat Jennings. He soon broke into the first team and won the League Cup in 1987 and the Division title in 1989. George Graham went on to a sign David Seaman from Leeds United only to cause outrage amongst Arsenal fans.
Lukic was a fan favourite whereas Seaman was his understudy back at Elland Road. Before leaving, Graham stated, “I still think John Lukic is one of the best keepers in the country; I just think David Seaman is the best. “Watch & Bet Football Here =>
2. Bob Wilson – 125- Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets
Bob Wilson was first scouted by Manchester United but he was not allowed to sign professionally for them by his father. While training to be a teacher at Loughborough College, he started playing amateur football for Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Two years later he became the first amateur to have a transfer fee paid worth £7,500 to Arsenal. It was only 8 months after signing for the Gunners, he truly got to become a professional footballer.
At first, he served as an understudy to Jum Furnell and it was only after four years, he got the chance to become the club’s number 1. He became a regular in 1968/69 season and went on to win the Inter Cities Fairs Cup the next season, despite breaking his arm.
Wilson remained the number one choice through the early 70s but surprisingly announced his early retirement in 1974, aged 32.
1. David Seaman – 237 – Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets
At the time the fee of £1.3m, a British record for a goalkeeper, was thought excessive by some. In hindsight, it’s up there with Ian Wright, Steve Bould, Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn as the best money Graham – or any Arsenal manager – had ever spent. Now, he might just be regarded as one of the best Arsenal goalkeepers ever (if not the best)!
Seaman’s sustained excellence won over the fans in no time and he became the cornerstone of an Arsenal back five which kept 23 clean sheets and conceded just 18 goals en route to the 1990/91 League title. Seaman’s qualities were manifold – he had sharp reflexes, excellent positional sense, great judgement from crosses and bags of courage.
The title evaded Arsenal for the next seven years but Seaman remained to the fore as Graham’s side became Cup kings at home and in Europe. By now Wright was the major weapon in attack and the well-worn chant of ‘One-Nil to the Arsenal’ was born as the livewire striker nicked a goal while Seaman – plus the famous Back Four – took care of the clean sheet.
The European Cup Winners’ Cup probably saw Seaman’s finest individual moments. (Arsenal Goalkeepers With Most Clean Sheets
Hampered by a broken rib, the Yorkshireman had pain-killing injections before keeping out a stellar cast of Zola, Brolin and Asprilla in the 1994 backs-to-the-wall win over Parma. The following season he pulled off three superb saves in a Semi-Final penalty shoot-out against Sampdoria and, although Nayim’s freakish winner spoiled the Final, Seaman’s stock was sky high.
He soon translated that form to the international scene, emerging as one of England’s heroes at Euro ’96. Penalty saves against Scotland and Spain propelled Seaman into the realms of celebrity and his England career stretched for eight years before another bizarre goal – from Brazil’s Ronaldinho at the 2002 World Cup – signalled the end.
The trophies continued to stack up at club level. Seaman was a blessing for new manager Arsène Wenger and duly played a full part in the Double sides of 1998 and 2002. The new century ushered in growing criticism about Seaman’s reflexes and judgement, but the keeper responded in the best way possible – with more silverware and a save which will live long in the memory. Watch & Bet Football Here =>
It was April 2003, Seaman was approaching his 40th birthday and Arsenal were defending a 1-0 lead in the FA Cup Semi-Final against Sheffield United at Old Trafford. In the closing minutes, Seaman was stranded when Paul Peschisolido nodded goalwards but, with an equaliser seemingly inevitable, the Arsenal keeper threw himself across goal and reached back to somehow claw the ball away from under the crossbar. It was just like Seaman to save the best for last and the perfect way to silence those critics.
A month later the long-serving stopper lifted the FA Cup at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium as Arsenal’s captain following a 1-0 win against Southampton. After 564 appearances and eight major trophies, it was his final act as an Arsenal player and a fitting climax to a glittering Highbury career.
See Also:
- Top 10 Arsenal Most Expensive Signings Ever
- Best Arsenal XI Of All Time
- Arsenal Biggest Win Ever – Highest Arsenal Win Ever In History!
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