Fulham are in danger with Steven Benda as their back-up goalkeeper

A back-up goalkeeper is rarely near the top of a club’s shopping list, but Fulham may end up regretting the decision not plump for one this summer. Off the back of a window that saw previous number two Marek Rodak head to Saudi Arabia and promising England youth international keeper George Wickens move on permanently to League One’s Lincoln City, we’ve been left with a sparse goalkeeping department.

Of course, Bernd Leno remains the number one and will do for some time hopefully, but beyond the German international, you’re left worrying. Academy keepers Alex Borto and Michael Allen will likely travel with the side as a third option for training drills on matchdays, but in waiting, should anything to prevent Leno from starting, is Steven Benda. After a worrying cameo in pre-season against Sevilla, Benda’s done little to allay concerns over his ability as a potential Premier League goalkeeper. And Tuesday night’s penalty shoot-out showing against Preston has just added fuel to the flames.

Who is Steven Benda?

After growing up in Stuttgart and playing for Heidenheim and 1860 Munich’s youth sides, Benda moved to the UK in 2016 to join then-Premier League Swansea City’s academy. After experiencing loan spells with Swindon in League One and Peterborough in the Championship, Benda established himself in the Swansea side in the 2022/23 season, playing 21 Championship games. With Rodak having just a year left on his deal at Fulham, the club moved to bring Benda in as a future option in their goalkeeping department. At 25 years old, Benda is yet to make a Premier League appearance, featuring only in cup competitions and pre-season for the club. However, were first choice keeper Bernd Leno to become unavailable, he’d be next in line for a first team appearance.

Worries over a Leno absence

Bernd Leno’s availability for most of his professional career has been spot on. Bar one red card for Arsenal a few years ago, he’s not had a history of suspensions, but then again nor have most goalkeepers. Focus then turns to the German’s injury record. An elbow injury in 2012 ruled him out for a month of action while he was at Bayer Leverkusen, but from then until an incident with Neal Maupay in the 2019/20 season, he stayed fit and rarely missed a game at club level through fitness or injury issues. While at Fulham, his only injury came to his nose, of which he received surgery and subsequently recovered during an international break last season, causing him to miss the grand total of zero games.

So on the surface, not much to worry about – right? Well, just because he hasn’t been injured often, doesn’t mean he can’t be injured soon. All you have to do is look at the likes of Nick Pope at Newcastle to see how complicated it can be for a goalkeeper to return from an awkward injury. When Maupay injured Leno half a decade ago, it caused him to miss 11 games for Arsenal, which for them may not have been a catastrophe (famously it gave Emiliano Martinez his big breakthrough in club football). However for Fulham, the drop-off to Steven Benda could prove huge, especially over a stretch of 10 or more fixtures, in which there is the potential for Fulham to lose points they might normally have won with Leno in goal rather than Benda. You need a reliable second-choice goalkeeper at this level of football, and I’m not sure that’s what Steven Benda is.

Why the worry over Benda?

The first thing we can judge Benda on is his performances for Fulham. As previously mentioned, a 45-minute cameo in the summer against Sevilla in Portugal started some fans’ worries over this particular German keeper. His lack of authority in claiming crosses and struggles with distribution were worrying enough, without looking into his poor positioning for the two goals Sevilla put past him. In subsequent League Cup appearances against Birmingham and Preston, despite making one or two notable saves, Benda has not done a thing to provoke confidence in his abilities, and his awful record of saving just one of 17 Preston penalties in the record-ling shoot-out on Tuesday night didn’t reflect on him well either.

To emphasise the point of his potential lack of suitability to the role of Premier League back-up goalkeeper, let us compare him to a few of the notable back-up options around us in the table and their pedigree compared to a keeper who has zero Premier League experience and no real pedigree in the lower leagues either.

Who is in the market as an upgrade?

If Leno got injured tomorrow, the only option the club would have in terms of recruitment would be to enter the free agent market. Not many quality goalkeepers are available in that regard, but not nobody. Keylor Navas is the most notable name and has recent Premier League experience, but you struggle to see Fulham paying the sort of wage the Costa Rica legend would be looking for just for Navas to make way as soon as Leno returns. Czechia international Jiri Pavlenka is available on a free following seven years at Bundesliga side Werder Bremen and may fancy a crack at the Premier League were the opportunity to present itself. A less experienced and potentially riskier option could be Kristoffer Klaesson, who was recently released by Leeds United. Klaesson is only 23 years old, has recent English experience with Leeds and played quite a lot of senior top division football for Valerenga in the top tier of Norweigan football too.

If it got to the January window and Fulham had survived with Leno but realised the need for a back-up and were willing to spend a bit of money, more options would become available in the market. Alex Meret at Napoli, Walter Benitez at PSV and Matt Ryan at Roma are all experienced options who have contracts running out in the summer of 2025 and may be available on the cheap come the January window.

Were Fulham to look to the future with a younger number two they could develop to be Leno’s successor, they may look to the likes of Sam Tickle at Wigan, who has made a real name for himself in League One and looks to be arguably the most talented young English keeper around at the moment. Looking further afield, Goncalo Ribeiero is a talented keeper at Porto, and while only being 18 years old, is unlikely to play much for a long time with Diogo Costa, one of the world’s best goalkeepers, still at the Portuguese giants.