AS Roma: Three hopes, one fear

Hope #3: That Szczesny can pulled together consecutive successful seasons

Wojciech Szczesny seems to bring out the best and worst in football supporters. While his saves are often spectacular his decision-making can often be a bit maddening. Arsenal supporters can probably the gray hairs on their head and directly attribute them to Szczesny either making a brilliant or head-scratching decision. It is part of the reason why he was sent on loan to AS Roma in the first place: an almost consignment that he will never quite turn the page.

Well a funny thing happened with Roma last season: Szczesny had a mostly error-free season. Smoking issue aside, Szczesny had a quiet year with Roma bailing the side out on a couple of occasions and mostly avoiding the mental errors that have plagued his career. He also had eight clean sheets, a sign that he has perhaps made the next step as a goalkeeper.

What  Roma is banking on is that he can do it for two consecutive seasons. In his career Szczesny has never really put together two consecutive quality seasons. Part of the reason for that is because Arsenal always seemed to be moving him between first and second on the depth chart. But that also seems to point to Szczesny’s inability to deliver quality performances on a consistent basis. Roma seems to be banking on Szczesny to deliver the goods. It will be interesting to see if he can do it.