Keeper Sczcesny eyes Carling Cup berth

By Declan Taylor

Wojciech Szczesny is targeting the Carling Cup after an impressive pre-season campaign.

The young Pole spent almost six months on the sidelines after breaking both arms in an unfortunate training ground incident last October. However, now fully recovered, the 19-year-old has continued making quite unerring progress.

Some eye-catching form for the Under-18s and Reserves last season earned Szczesny a place on the bench for Arsenal’s final game of last season – their 4-1 victory over Stoke.

More first-team experience was to follow with a place on the annual pre-season tour to Austria. There, the keeper featured in all three of Arsenal’s wins and did not concede a goal in his 135 minutes on the pitch.

Now buoyed by the faith shown in him by his manager, the goalkeeper is setting his sights on the ultimate prize – Arsenal's No 1 jersey.

“I want to convince the manager to give me a Carling Cup chance,” Szczesny told Arsenal.com. “Then my main target is to be No 1 at Arsenal.

“I want to jump into the starting XI every Saturday so I need to take all the steps. Personally I think my development has been very good so far so hopefully I will keep doing well and take my chances.

“I want to take every step: last year I stepped up from the Under-18s to the Reserves, this year I managed to get into the first-team squad.

“I got a few chances from the boss and I knew that was my chance to convince him to give me more chances. I think I have taken it well. I’ve kept a clean sheet throughout the whole of pre-season and now I want to prove to him that I am a good keeper and he can rely on me.

“It gives me a lot of confidence and it makes me believe that the boss really likes me and believes I can be a good keeper.

“Mentally I believe I am ready for the first team. I’m very confident. I have never played at the top level but mentally I am ready for that.”