‘Know what he is doing’ – Arsenal keeper insists he can read Tottenham attacker

Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno has insisted he can read what Son Heung-min is about to do, having played alongside the South Korean at Bayer Leverkusen.

Son has had no trouble scoring past Leno in recent North London derbies but the Arsenal goalkeeper did pull off an outstanding save against the Tottenham forward back in 2019.

The game at the Emirates ended in a 2-2 draw, with Spurs racing into a two-goal lead through Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane before being pegged back.

The fingertip save that Leno produced to deny Son’s curling effort made it into the goalkeeper’s top five saves in a list complied on Arsenal’s YouTube channel.

When discussing the save, Leno admitted that he knew exactly what the Tottenham forward was trying to do and that reading the shot helped him to reach the ball.

The goalkeeper also revealed that Son expressed his disbelief to him after the final whistle.

Leno said about the save (starting at 6:25 in the video): “I have to say, I played with Son at Bayer Leverkusen. So I know what he is doing, and so as a goalkeeper sometimes you have to read the situation, and I read that situation to make that fingertip save.

Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka then remarked: “If I’m the player, I would go crazy”, to which Leno responded: “He went crazy. He said after (the game) to me: ‘Come on!! Stop doing that’.”

Spurs Web Opinion

That was a great effort by Son and a great save but it was not difficult to read that the South Korean was going to try to curl the ball into the far corner based on his body shape.

In fact, the 29-year-old scored a very similar goal past Leno in Tottenham’s 2-0 win over Arsenal last season but it was so well directed that the goalkeeper could do nothing about it.

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