This deal needs Wenger's famous 'personal touch' to go through.

23 days later

Decided to watch a highlight reel of his and it is almost exclusive punching, blocking and deflecting shots which often resulted in a scramble to win the loose ball. The one time he actually caught and held onto the ball was a tame header, straight at him, by Chamakh at about 4:26.
Made me worry about what he is like on corners and high balls into the box.

ebouefan wrote:

This deal needs Wenger's famous 'personal touch' to go through.

For the love of God Wenger- "Make a lower offer."

Completely useless signing if we are actually pursuing him.

He's shocking aerially and his strengths of being a good shot stopper will be utilized even less at Arsenal. Dont know if he is OK with a bench role as well, because he can very well get the undisputed first choice role at a top/mid table club in a world cup year.

He will fit will into our tradition of conceding against the first attempt.

not particularly impressed by cesar. ches is capable of keeping him out of the side imo

Iloveyouarsenewenger wrote:

Signing Cesar = More chances to Szczesny

Not sure if you mean that that's a bad thing or not.

That is because I am not certain about it. Wenger is a huge admirer or Lloris and in any other year apart from last, we'd have snapped up Lloris the moment he was available for a decent price. But, we clearly did not go for him because we had faith in Szczesny to turn into a top Goalie. At that time, it made me a bit uneasy, but, I was still okay with the call. But, after last season, I am not so sure about Szczesny any more. He is well be very good for his age but he clearly doesn't seem to be good enough for us, at his current level.

The likes of Mignolet and Begovich could have been very good long term solutions based on last season, but, we're again going for someone whose primary virtue is that he won't drive Szczesny away from the club. A goalkeeper has a role to play in the business end of the game and having a top goalkeeper who does not make mistakes and who can pull off great saves is a huge advantage for a team.

If Szczesny doesn't make have a much improved season this year, we'd end up looking like chumps once again.

He finished the season very strongly indeed. Just need him to be consistent throughout the season at roughly that level. He'll make some howlers - every keeper does. But his 'quality' is that he generally makes less mistakes than other 'keepers, and if you watched more of the 90 mins Hart and De Gea play, youd see that. The downside is that Szczesny doesnt make as many spectacular saves. he generally does what you expect from a keeper and a little more. But the Hart's are a but more erratic - but have more amazing eye-catching games which (rightly) elevates their reputations. Still, Szczesny saved us quite a few points at the last 1/3 of the season, and its a massive change previous keepers where we used to panic every time we conceded a corner.

I didn't see a point of signing Lloris, mainly because I have good faith in Szczesny. But on hindsight we should have signed Lloris because he is better than Szczesny last season. Heck, even Fabianski was better than Szczesny.

That said, Szczesny still have good potential and I think he can step it up. Not sure we should sign Julio Cesar on high wages, just keep Fabiansk.

I'd prefer Cesar over Fabianski purely because of his pedigree and vast experience. He may not the best there is, but, he is much more likely to last the entire season without having a terrible period or a sudden loss of confidence or fitness than Fabianski.

Some meaningless stats for your info. Those who came across from A-M may remember I used to have a long list of these. Can't find it now, so here is the abridged Arsenal-specific version.

Pat Jennings = 183cm
Casillas = 185cm
Cesar = 186cm (6' 1")
Jens Lehmann, Fabianski = 190cm (nearly 6' 3")
David Seaman = 193cm
Wojciech Szczesny = 196cm (6' 5") although various sites have him between 195 and 198cm

I don't have stats for arm length or vertical leap capability.

Patters wrote:

He finished the season very strongly indeed. Just need him to be consistent throughout the season at roughly that level. He'll make some howlers - every keeper does. But his 'quality' is that he generally makes less mistakes than other 'keepers, and if you watched more of the 90 mins Hart and De Gea play, youd see that. The downside is that Szczesny doesnt make as many spectacular saves. he generally does what you expect from a keeper and a little more. But the Hart's are a but more erratic - but have more amazing eye-catching games which (rightly) elevates their reputations. Still, Szczesny saved us quite a few points at the last 1/3 of the season, and its a massive change previous keepers where we used to panic every time we conceded a corner.

It is odd that Szczesny turned out this way as i seem to remember him making spectacular saves as a youngster. Was it the 2 broken arm injuries he suffered, a few years back, that have limited his capability?

I think, the spectacular saves he made at Brentford were all after the broken arm incident.

Still think Szezcny's capable of the spectacular save.

In fact, I think quite a few of his saves are more spectacular than routine. Apart from his godawful kicking, and the occasional lapse in concentration or brain fart, he's been generally solid.

We do need a solid back up though, and with the WC on the horizon, Julio Cesar isn't going to want to accept that role, so we might as well forget this one.

Kicking is still a huge problem, especially as possession is so important to us.

Julio Cesar's distribution is impressive

Even Manone's distribution was impressive when compared to Szcz who needs to practice basic kicking of the ball in training and stop this shit

8 days later

Napoli signed Santos goalkeeper Rafael for €5m.

Guess we're getting Cesar?

Cesar to Napoli almost done according to Duncan Castles on twitter.

Cannon wrote:

Cesar to Napoli almost done according to Duncan Castles on twitter.

Who the fuck is Duncan Castles on twitter?

Some journo who is linking every story into his Sulia account. Stopped following him long time ago.

Well looks like he was right, we sure dodged a bullet.

6 days later

I think Wenger has settled on Szczesny and Fabianski for next season and has no interest at all in a new keeper.

The lengths these papers go to when trying to explain why a transfer they said was done hasn't happened yet, is stupido.

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