van Gaal is his buddy though.

This is looking more and more likely by the day.  :drool:

Can't state enough what a WC keeper would give to this team. We haven't had one since Seaman ffs.

Ricky1985 wrote:

Mourinho isn't the all powerful figure at Chelsea that he might try to portray himself as, when it suits him. If Abramovich has given Cech his word, as has been reported, then there's sod all Mourinho can do about it.

Indeed, some fans imbue Mourunho with almost supernatural powers (understandably) but Abramovich will have the final word.

Gunner89 wrote:

These relation type things are always exaggerated. The people at Barcelona hate Mourinho but sold Cesc to him. At the end of the day if it's an expendable player, the value is fine and the player agrees then usually a deal is done.

One would image Van Gaal would have much preferred to sell or loan Welbeck to Spurs on deadline day give our threat to them and our lack of alternatives beyond Sanogo for the 3 months after and Spurs were interested but he still came here didn't he.

Or maybe LVG realised Welbeck wasn't going to have much of an impact.

Chelsea wouldn't let us have Ba despite not wanting him themselves. Teams often allow players to leave on the basis they wont join rivals.

Are we "going for Cech" though? I've yet to see anything to make me think this is anything more than idle speculation.

And even if we did go after him don't forget we wasted half a summer trying to get Suarez from a club that had no wish to deal with us.

Why doesn't he bother with the second "e"?

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

Why doesn't he bother with the second "e"?

Adrian Mutu took it when he first moved to London. 

But there's no 'e' in Adrian Mu....hey wait a minute...ah I get it!

Kike Marin** ‏@Kike_Marin_

@Arsenal Wenger likes Cech, Cech wants to go to #Arsenal... but Mourinho NO wants to strengthen a direct rival.

Lets hope the powers higher up at Chelsea let Cech join!

We're wasting our time on this, Cech will have other suitors and there's no incentive to let him join Arsenal. We've got a better chance of signing Benzema as far as I'm concerned. Don't know how he's made it onto everyone's muppet list

Don't see Wenger considering goalkeeper as a priority either. I'll be hugely surprised if we don't start the next season with the same keepers as this one, I reckon Wenger has a lot of faith in Szcz and he won't want to get rid of Ospina after one season either.

That's the ruthless streak I don't see in Wenger; I don't see him being prepared to ship out one of the goalkeepers we have if he could get his hands on Cech. They both want to stay, and I think that means Wenger won't even throw his hat in the ring regarding Cech.

I don't think that's accurate at all. We signed Monreal while we had two left backs who wanted to stay. We signed Ozil while we had 3 players who played at no.10, there's various other examples.

I think if he has the chance to sign a player he really rates, he'll go for them regardless of who he might upset. I don't know if Cech falls into that category, but if Benzema become available I don't think he'd worry too much about upsetting Giroud, Welbeck and Theo.

IMO those situations are different. Cazorla was playing on the flank at the time we bought Özil, and you always have the possibility to move attacking players around a bit. For the LB position Wenger was certainly fed up with Santos and was in fact looking to replace him. With goalkeepers you only really need two. Getting a third means you have to let one of the others go.
In Wenger's defense, I haven't heard HIM say he is desperate to keep Sneezey. He may very well feel the same way about him as he did with Santos.

Who knows what goes on in his head, but I reckon if he finds a player he loves and thinks they're good value he'll be all over that regardless of who's already in said players position. And Cech is excellent value given his current situation.

Sagna's signing was fairly out of the blue at the time, quite ruthless too since eboué looked so promising that season.

otfgoon wrote:

I don't think that's accurate at all. We signed Monreal while we had two left backs who wanted to stay. We signed Ozil while we had 3 players who played at no.10, there's various other examples.

I think if he has the chance to sign a player he really rates, he'll go for them regardless of who he might upset. I don't know if Cech falls into that category, but if Benzema become available I don't think he'd worry too much about upsetting Giroud, Welbeck and Theo.

Yeah I agree. In fact I think thats almost exactly how Wenger will approach this summer. The only caveat is I doubt he has as many keepers he admires as AMs, wingers, strikers, etc

Nah, he'd been playing on the left for a while by that point. Rosicky or Wilshere playing as the 10, front three of Caz/ Giroo/ Theo.

Some more reports coming out that Cech wants to join Arsenal as he wants to keep living in London. Seems to be the only thing that could scupper or delay the deal is Mourinho. Personally I think that is one of the main reasons we should keep trying to sign him, would love to knock his ego if his boss overrides his choice and lets Cech join us.

Rorz wrote:

Don't see Wenger considering goalkeeper as a priority either. I'll be hugely surprised if we don't start the next season with the same keepers as this one, I reckon Wenger has a lot of faith in Szcz and he won't want to get rid of Ospina after one season either.

Think it is clear that Wenger has lost faith in Chesney hence why he never bought him back in the league. Ospina didn't exactly cover himself in glory either so can definitely see us bringing a GK in. Chesney either needs to be sold or loaned out, he hasn't progressed as a player for years now.

Bizarre end to the GK scenario with Chezney not playing the final game, but then starting the Cup Final.

How good is Cech these days anyway?

We desperately need a world class keeper, but there's something about taking Chelsea's clear number two that just doesn't sit right with me. We should have our own DeGea or Courtois.

Plus, I suspect that cap he wears is always going to bother me somewhat. Not that he should risk his safety or anything. I just hate looking at it.

i'm not convinced curtois is that much better than him tbh. he's not what he used to be, but he's a significant improvement on what we have. still looked sharp a few days ago against sydney fc. at 10m it's a no brainer to me.

I hate his hat too. I wish he'd wear a wig on top of it so he looked semi-normal.

Now he just looks like the unfortunate kid at the playing ground who got outfitted with helmets and padded protections before he was let out to play with the other children.

But that is exactly what it is, no?

What if it were red Kla?

That Oblak looks good by the way

Klaus wrote:

Now he just looks like the unfortunate kid at the playing ground who got outfitted with helmets and padded protections before he was let out to play with the other children.

I paused to watch a game on in a local park looked like 13 year old girls, one of the goalies was wearing and Petr Cech helmet.

So Cech wears a girls hat.

Strong wrists to push it wide (then again not wide enough as it fell to one of their players) but a pretty standard save I'd expect from any decent goalkeeper.

Nothing will happen until after the Euro qualifiers so lets hope we can wrap this one up quickly. Seems like he wants to stay in London and a few people have said we have verbally got a deal in place.

Will be a world class signing imo, guy is still top drawer and much better than what we have available.

I'm still very skeptical Chelsea will sell him to us. It would be an incredible signing, if it happened.

I like Sneezey and think he can still grow into a top goalkeeper, but I'd easily sell him if we could take advantage of this opportunity to get a truly world class goalkeeper. Thinking about it, I'd sell the one of Ospina and Sneezey who least fancies to be relegated to the bench for the foreseeable future.

Ospina is class act as a man and a very professional athlete. Szczesny is a clown. I know who i would sell.

• i have moderate concerns about cech. he hasn't been "the same" since the head injury. hes still shown he can perform at a high level, but hes conceded some reaaaally bad goals over the last few seasons, and that is with an ultra defensive team in front of him
• given my concerns, id still rate him above sneezy.
• £10m is a lot to pay for someone his age, and would be very anti-wenger, since he basically will have no resale value at all.
• i think sneezy should leave. after the southampton game, it was written that he wouldnt play in the league again, and everyone thought that was far fetched, but it turned out to be true. ospina wasn't amazing, but he was solid, and he did it without any theatrics. i think that may have made up wenger's mind. people say wenger has been a bit more ruthless with his selections and decisions, this would solidify that.
• ospina is only 26, he is settled here now, and he showed that he could basically come into the team cold and perform. we have enough games where he'll still get starts next season even if he is the backup to cech, and given that cech is older, he could always have injury issues and ospina would get plenty of games
• ospina doesn't really have much competition for the #1 spot anymore for colombia, so i dont think he'll freak out about losing his place if hes not the automatic #1 here.

Fantastic Mr.Fox wrote:

I'm still very skeptical Chelsea will sell him to us. It would be an incredible signing, if it happened.

Mourinho is not daft. If that 10 million puts him closer to an upgrade on Oscar, a new star striker, or Terry's replacement, he'll bite. Before then, he wil draw it out to assert his power of Wenger. Might even wait until the day after the Communty Shield.