Former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson has jumped to the defence of Wojciech Szczesny.

The Poland international has found his position under the spotlight this week following reports he was caught smoking in the showers after Arsenal's 2-0 defeat at Southampton on New Year's Day, when his errors played a part for both goals.

"Wojciech deserves to be the Arsenal number one at this time," Wilson said in an interview with the London Evening Standard.

"Ospina looked pretty good at the World Cup and he looked fine in the Hull game. He made a couple of really good catches and made one save low down, but that is all he had to do. It wasn't a serious test.

"What niggles me about this recent criticism (of Szczesny) after the Southampton game is that if people go back four days to the West Ham game (on December 28), his performance was so good he won us the three points.

"If you are looking for incidents to blame him, put the first goal at Southampton against him, fine, but don't start arguing with me about the second goal because it was not his fault.

"Any goalkeeper will tell you, lying on the floor with the opposition closing in on you, you make contact and you have no chance to get any leverage on it. It could go anywhere as a result of a situation not of his making.

"He did not have his best game, but most ex-keepers would say the last thing you want to do with your number one goalie is give him a rest. If I was goalkeeping coach there now and Arsene was asking me, I would say, 'don't drop him'.

"Every goalkeeper makes mistakes. I spend a lot of time with David Seaman and all anybody asks him was, 'what happened with Ronaldinho (against Brazil at the 2002 World Cup) and Nayim? (in the 1995 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final).'

"The people in the know should recognise who is the best goalkeeper there (at Arsenal)."