Better than last season's keeper kits I think, the collar on those was weird.

Ricky1985 wrote:

We put all our points on the board early and we had basically everybody fit. Rosicky got injured in January, but most of the players that formed the spine and came together to form an effective and balanced team were fit from the start until March or so, when it all started to fall apart.

It's about consistency of selection, as we saw this season. You don't need the best players in the world, but you find a system that works, you keep picking the players that are doing well and you build a head of steam. Most weeks in the first two thirds of that season we picked Almunia in goal, Sagna, Toure, Gallas and Clichy in defence,  Rosicky, Flamini, Fabregas, Diaby/Eboue in midfield, with Hleb playing off Adebayor up front. The fact that I know that 8 years later tells you how consistent the selection was. In the seasons since, we've rarely, if ever, been fortunate enough to put our best team, or thereabouts, on the pitch from the start of the season and then deep into it. We've always lost key, spinal players every single season, and we've had no consistency there in those key positions because of it. Impossible to from a balanced and effective team when the key components keep on changing from one week to the next.

I remember one of Gallas/Toure is in and out of the team after January, whuch meant Senderos played quite alot of games that season.

Anyway, my point is that injuries affected that season alot too, otherwise we would have won the league. We haven't gone closer than that season which tells you alot. We had even lesser depth in that season than subsequent ones, which was a key factor because our injury state is more or less the same every season, maybe bar the last one. The spine of that team can't be laughed at unless we do better than that team next season.

General Mirth wrote:

Qwiss! wrote:

I don't think you can really claim Welbeck has been better than Chamakh or Gerivinho were. Gervinho was a bit lazy though, at least when Welbecks being shit he's still working hard.

Not a comment on their individual quality, but Gervinho and Chamakh were sort of signed as first choice. (Well, Chamakh was cover for an injury prone van Persie) whereas Welbeck is probably on the same level as a those signings but far away from the first team.

Fair point there.

Lets hope he can bring his GK coach in as well. Always heard bad things about our current guy, over the years I get the impression we had too many coaches/scouts who we should have got rid of years ago. Youth team was a mess, scouting wasn't all that and then the fitness situation. Poor from us that we kind of let ourselves go.

Yeah, his coach seems focused and constantly looking to keep up the keepers motivation and training. Our goalkeepers tend to get comfortable in their position if first choice and end up making mistakes or not improving, that may be down to the keeping coach just going through the drills.

‏@wengerknowsbest
Did Cech's medical go well? Look, we didn't find anything wrong, but he did have an undisclosed Portuguese man attached to one leg.

A big goofy nerd on a mission to prove himself again at a new club.
He has to be a massive presence for us.

General Mirth wrote:

‏@wengerknowsbest  
Did Cech's medical go well? Look, we didn't find anything wrong, but he did have an undisclosed Portuguese man attached to one leg.

On vacation at the cape right now but I'm really happy about this signing. Amazing business and we are really starting to feel like a top club again. Couldn't be happier. Now for a midfielder. I doubt we'll get a striker in as well.

Cech is definitely the best keeper on the market and could totally change our defense for the better, especially as I'd be less worried leaving Mert out. Needed another cool head out there to give us that flexibility in team selection.

What a massive signing. I doubt there will be a better ingoing transfer for any English club than this. We could better it with some of our favourite tranfers though, but that's highly unlikely in fairness.

“I believe I will win trophies at @Arsenal. It is as simple as that.” - @PetrCech

Chili Palmer wrote:

What a massive signing. I doubt there will be a better ingoing transfer for any English club than this. We could better it with some of our favourite tranfers though, but that's highly unlikely in fairness.

Will see. United tossing Falcao and van Persie fills me with dread. They can outpay us 30-50% on fees and wages. 

There's no one out there of top quality in that position for them to spend their money on. They'll probably end up with Benteke!

what i think they'll do is
1) go after Kane, who had a decent scoring record last season. they'll hand over 40m to Spurs no problem here, and i think he can be a success there with some of DePay, Mata, Di Maria Young, Rooney, etc around him. he did score tons of goals in a rubbish team. and even if we remove the Europa League goals, he still had an excellent haul.
2) maybe go big after Benzema in the hope that Real will, in turn, go after Aguero. more of a longshot, but not a complete dream

Benzema is a pipe dream. Forget him. Actually the mere mention of his name as a potential signing is starting to annoy me now.