Mourinho's behind the reason why he's had to leave Chelsea, why would he specifically thank or mention him?

still feels surreal even though it's been a done deal for a while.

that it happened against jose's will makes it sweeter

Cech will improve us, that is without a doubt. More than that, though, I'm happy that another player, who has won absolutely everything in his career so far at a club level and is at his peak, decided to join us. That could mean only one thing, we are again a club with the highest targets and one others think that could win significant trophies. Wenger would never persuade him to come if it wasn't the case. Wonder who is next. Well done.

lagos wrote:

I wouldn't make a big deal out of not thanking Mourinho, except you are an Arsenal fan and just want to ...just because! There may be something to it, there may be nothing, who knows.

He has played under 5 managers at Chelsea and won silverware under ALL! FA cup under 4 different managers, Mourinho isn't the only manger under whom he won the PL. He didn't win the Europa cup and the biggest one of all, the Champions league under Mourinho. So it would be disrespectful to the other manager to only mention Jose by name.....if you are going to mention all managers then "Managers" covers them all!

Personally I think there's no more to it than that.

Agreed - Mourinho is an irrelevance.

😃

really loved reading that letter. was well-thought out. doesn't matter if he penned it himself or had his management agency do it. he got the notes just right: thanking his former team for their support without going so overboard that it alienates his new team. if only idiots like Fabregas and van Persie had managed their transfers so professionally from end-to-end.

i hope he brings this maturity to the dressing room and sets an example for our laddish players, mainly Wilshere and Szczesny. very excited to have Cech on our books

Get in! Welcome Petr.

What a great start to the window! 🙂

jones wrote:

😆 😆 😆 😆

is that test done by the same guy who gave his girlfriend a quiz on Arsenal?

One hell of a signing.

I wouldn't be surprised if Cech wasn't overly fond of Mourinho - Petr's a gentleman, Mourinho is nasty little prick.

Claudius wrote:

really loved reading that letter. was well-thought out. doesn't matter if he penned it himself or had his management agency do it. he got the notes just right: thanking his former team for their support without going so overboard that it alienates his new team. if only idiots like Fabregas and van Persie had managed their transfers so professionally from end-to-end.

i hope he brings this maturity to the dressing room and sets an example for our laddish players, mainly Wilshere and Szczesny. very excited to have Cech on our books

Well said, exactly how i felt reading it too. Top bloke.

Claudius wrote:

i hope he brings this maturity to the dressing room and sets an example for our laddish players, mainly Wilshere and Szczesny. very excited to have Cech on our books

He's coming from the vilest dressing room in all of football, he'll probably find Jack and Woj refreshingly decent lads.

Anyway this is a good signing and Cech is a top pro and hopefully still a top keeper.

I bet he will love it in our dressing room after all those years over there (bar the titles).

Ricky1985 wrote:

Not as of yet. Hopefully he'll follow.

Wouldn't bank on it, he told l'Equipe that he didn't think Chelsea would favour him moving to us.

Me to Wife: "so, we have officially signed Petr Cech"

Wife to Me: "oh, you got helmet boy after all, good"

😃

Fantastic Mr.Fox wrote:

Did we sign his coach?

Biggus likes this  🙂

The only way I will be remotely 'happy' about this signing is if Cech himself, upon arrival, gives a keynote presentation to the whole squad on how it feels and what it takes to actually win the motherfucking CL!

Why would he need to give a slide show?
It's a dressing room not a board room.

ill be perfectly happy with it if he performs remotely like he did for Chelsea.. he's better than either option we have.

Yeah, we now have a world class player at one of the pointy ends. Find it difficult to not get excited over that alone.

Cech-Koscielny-Ramsey-Ozil-Sanchez, top quality from back to front.

For the sake of comparison, 07/08 side people seem to love:

Almunia-Gallas-Fabregas-Hleb-Adebayor

y va marquer wrote:
Ricky1985 wrote:

Not as of yet. Hopefully he'll follow.

Wouldn't bank on it, he told l'Equipe that he didn't think Chelsea would favour him moving to us.

Not much Chelsea could really do if he wants to follow his protégé to a proper football club though, is there? Compensation would surely be minimal.

otfgoon wrote:

For the sake of comparison, 07/08 side people seem to love:

Almunia-Gallas-Fabregas-Hleb-Adebayor

God that's depressing

Saw the announcement on the train to work and punched the air and let out a little celebration. As I've said before, this is my dream signing. I can't believe it. I've never bought a shirt with a name on the back before, and I don't think I've ever bought the goalkeeper shirt either even as a keeper myself. Fucking tempted to get a goalkeeper shirt with Cech now. He could give us 4 or 5 top seasons like Van der Sar did for United.

To get him from Mourinho too. All that experience and those titles coming into the dressing room. As well as his own performances, the leadership and influence he will bring could be massive. This feels like a game changing signing. For Wenger to spend that much on a 33 year old in a position we're quite well stocked. To move ahead of someone he has developed for years and someone he only signed a year ago feels like that ruthlessness we haven't seen often enough.

We do need to make some other big signings though. This is fantastic but can't be the only "marquee" signing of the summer.

People won't appreciate what an incredible signing this is until they see what a world class goalkeeper looks like every week. We haven't had one in nearly 10 years and even then Lehmann wasn't a patch on Cech.

Petr Cech has now become a cross between Nelson Mandela and Dino Zoff.

In all seriousness, thanking all the Arsenal players via twitter is refreshing and sweet.

He does seem like a good lad I must say,

Even Buffon is wishing Cech good luck.

otfgoon wrote:

For the sake of comparison, 07/08 side people seem to love:

Almunia-Gallas-Fabregas-Hleb-Adebayor

Hindsight.

And that spine got us 83 points which we've never reached since.

Kike Marin** (@Kike_Marin_) tweeted at 7:07 p.m. on Mon, Jun 29, 2015:
@Arsenal #Arsenal Chelsea and Cech closed their agreements without Mourinho knew. He didn't want to reinforce gunners

otfgoon wrote:

For the sake of comparison, 07/08 side people seem to love:

Almunia-Gallas-Fabregas-Hleb-Adebayor

You put 2007 Adebayor in front of this team and it wins the PL. World-class strikers win you the most points and we don't really have one.

Eduardo too when he got up to speed that season was better than Giroud imo. That season was also the one season where Clichy was class, and we'd just got Sagna. Obviously Rosicky's best season as well.

Van Persie had a decent season too. Shows you what good finishers in the team does for you.

This is one of the few signings from a rival that I can actually get excited about and not feel the player coming in is in somehow tainted by his previous club. Chelsea, United, Spurs, even Liverpool, signing players from any of those clubs just doesn't or wouldn't sit well with me. I don't know why but with Cech it's different.

Absolutely delighted that top class players are being spread more around the team now and it's not just overwhelmingly disproportionately up top we find our better players.