34-year-old Barcelona player set to remain a starter despite his worrying performances | OneFootball

The goalkeeping situation at FC Barcelona has taken another sharp turn recently, as it seems that Wojciech Szczesny has clearly overtaken Inaki Pena as the team’s starting goalie.

For several months after Marc Andre Ter Stegen’s injury, Hansi Flick decided to keep Inaki Pena as his team’s starting goalkeeper. In fact, the Pole, who came out of retirement to play for the Blaugrana club, was unable to make his debut until the start of this year.

However, since that start, in the game against Barbastro in the Copa del Rey, he has been the regular starter for Hansi Flick, and Pena has been relegated to a bench role.

But what has actually caused the Barcelona coach to rely more on the Pole is quite a mystery, as he has not offered any significant improvement over the younger, La Masia-developed Pena.

In fact, as Diario AS has noted, Szczesny is actually worse than the Spaniard, which is not only clear by the errors he has made in the games against Real Madrid, Benfica, Valencia, and last night against Atalanta but also by the numbers he has accumulated up to now.

The Polish veteran has faced 20 shots during this time and conceded 8 goals, thus saving 60% of the shots he has faced. This rating is lower than the other two goalkeepers who have protected the Barcelona goal this season, as Inaki Pena has a save percentage of 62.69% while Ter Stegen has been the best with 69.57% shots saved.

It is clear that Szczesny is struggling to get back to his best after having missed several months of professional football following his retirement at the end of the last season.

Still, Flick has made his decision, and Szczesny will remain the team’s starting goalkeeper going forward, and hopefully the goalie will be able to get back to his best form soon.