Arsenal, Barcelona transfer news: Victor Valdes has told Arsene Wenger he wants Gunners transfer

Arsenal are looking for some experienced competition for Wojciech Szczesny, according to the report, and the 31-year-old is keen on being that man.

Valdes told Barcelona earlier this season that he would not be signing an extension to his contract, which expires in the summer of 2014.

The report claims Wenger is mulling over an £8.5million bid for the Spain international as he looks for a more experienced campaigner.

Szczesny was the unquestioned number one at Emirates Stadium up until this week when he was dropped for the Champions League last 16 second leg with Bayern Munich.

I just hope this is is only rumour, I can't see Valdes in Arsenal no way!

It's nothing to argue about. I bet the majority will say the same about Valdes including some of Barcelona's fans. Valdes is a good goalkeeper *But* not the best for sure. By good I mean he makes a lot of good saves and mistakes, It's really like 50/50. But i will mention Goalkeepers who are the best and their good or great saves rate is much higher than their mistakes, Because at the end, Everyone does mistakes. So let me name some examples for great goalkeepers that currently still playing.

In no order of course because all of them are great:

Manuel Neuer

Peter Cech

Iker Casillas

Gianluigi Buffon

Joe Hart

Julio Cesar

Hugo Lloris

Igor Akinfeev

Michel Vorm

Thibaut Courtois & David de Gea "Are still young" But they are a promising Goalkeepers.

erm why the space between Manuel Neuer and the rest of the list grr I didn't even use a textedit program.. 

^^^ what he said. :)

Oh, I just noticed that there is no enter between Hugo Lloris and Igor Akinfeev *Facepalm* It would be really great if FootyRoom give us the ability to edit our posts & comments on the forum in case of errors :/ Thanks. :)

Or at least to edit them just for one time like on Yahoo Answers to avoid trolling. Otherwise the admins should take care of that? I don't know :)

Well this also depends on your definition of what a great keeper is. If you just look at goals conceeded then Barcelona have 31, Real Madrid 27, Manchester United 31, Chelsea 30, Spurs 37, Manchester City 26, Arsenal 32, AC Milan 32, BVB 32, Juventus 18(!) and the lowest of all Bayern Munich with only 11! 

So if you difine a keeper by amounts of goals he let in, Valdez is pretty much even with the rest while Buffon and Neuer would be the best keepers.

How did hart come into this conversation?

@Rai90: The number of goals conceded should be mainly blamed on the team's defense instead of considering it was due to the keeper's.

@raimondo90 Don't tell me that you want to compare an overall goalkeeper with someone who didn't concede much in the last 10 or 30 games because with this logic I might find you someone who just started playing as a goalkeeper and didn't concede a goal in 30 games which will make him better than all of those goalkeepers? I hope we are not arguing for such thing :)

Not to be a cunt but Vendetta,you blame Valdes for that Torres goal?
First if of all,when the striker is 1 vs 1 with the Keeper the most possible is to score,the goalkeeper  cannot do much.
Sencondly,the keeper need his defence to be solid as much as possible. Do you remember where was the last defender at torres goal?
I repeat when the striker scores against any goalkeeper after being 1 v 1 at the most chances the GK has no responsiblity for conceding  the goal.
For Instance whem Messi scores those chip goal we say "Oh Messi,Amazing goal"Awesome technique etc",we dont blame the GK.
Also when torres misses one chance after being 1 v1, people say he is shit,cant score etc we rarely say amazing save(In fact we say it only when the GK is casillas,neuer etc never when its an unknown keeper).

Im trying to prove a point. Calling a keeper shit because he conceeded a lot of goals isn't exactly his fault. I was hoping you guys would react the way you did. There is no sense calling Valdez shit when he has won every trophy to win and plays in the decades' best team. 

Hope you see what I am trying to show you by making this example. 

Nah Valdes performance is very, very irregular.  He is sometimes capable of doing great stuff, but most of the time, he does mistakes that are fatal. Better not afford taking him.

I didn't get to watch the match itself, but you can see from the highlights of the Brazil v Italy game, what a world-class keeper looks like. Cesar still has it.

If he was so bad why did we win so many titles with him? if he was so bad then he would concecede critical goals and we wouldnt of won anything. we would of got rid of him long ago.

hes been a critical part of our sucess.

5 league titles.
3 champions leagues
2 club world cups?

Aprendre és història.
És un dels porters els millors del món.

@Boix: "If he was so bad why did we win so many titles with him?"

Because he complements the Barcelona style. He has decent technical ability in his feet, and thus functions as part of their system. He's not that great a goalie, though, in my opinion, because of his poor decision-making and tendency to leak weak goals.

For Barcelona, outscoring the opposition to make the conceded goals count for nothing, is realistic. Outside of Barca, Valdes' slip-ups would be a lot more costly.

He's not crap, of course. But, there is a decent-sized queue of keepers I'd rather have between the sticks in my team, before him. Your mileage may vary.

@Lodatz I wanted to say the same about Cesar after watching the highlights mate :))

sorry arsenal.

OK so let me get this straight, Barcelona buys Fabregas and Henry from Arsenal and now they sell them Valdes? LOL

What you expect? 

1) We originally HAD fabregas

2) I'm saying give them sanchez + song

3) Who else? We can't exactly give them Iniesta or Messi....

@rama

I don't think Song would want to go back, since he joined Barcelona because he got into scraps with Arsene Wenger. :/