To shouts of "Judas!" and the distant crackle of burning polyester, Petr Čech has crossed the great divide. From the blue west to the red north, from Kensington to Islington, from new money and "no class" to marbled halls and Sir Chips Keswick. Nobody has crossed directly from one side of this bitter conflict to the other since ... since ... Yossi Benayoun, in 2011? Pfft. This is barely a proper rivalry at all.
What the Petr Čech transfer means for Chelsea and Arsenal
Petr Čech’s move from Chelsea to Arsenal probably won’t win the league for the latter, nor lose it for the former. But nevertheless, it’s an interesting move that raises questions for both clubs.
Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
What it is, though, is quite an interesting transfer. It raises questions. Questions that can’t quite be answered at this stage — because we don’t know — but that we’ll all enjoy exploring over the course of the season to come. So without further ado ...
What does it do to Chelsea?
Chelsea's squad isn't particularly weakened — assuming that they can pick up a half-decent backup and Thibaut Courtois doesn't melt down — but selling good players to national rivals is always a silly thing to do. This was a Roman Abramovich call, one informed by a sense of sentiment and gratitude to a long-term servant, and one that Jose Mourinho, the heartless bastard, has suggested that he might not himself have made.
Watching Mourinho over a number of seasons is a bit like watching a seismograph: you're always on the lookout for the first twitch of the needle that might, in the fullness of time, leave the club a smoking pile of expensive rubble and broken limbs. It was the imposition of Andriy Shevchenko by Abramovich last time that brought everything tumbling down, and if John Terry finds himself sucked into a crack in the earth around Christmastime, don't say you weren't warned. Just thank Santa.
But it’s a good signing for Arsenal, right?
Oh yes. Though as always, things are getting a little giddy. The Daily Telegraph even asked Twitter this morning if this was Arsène Wenger’s greatest signing ever, a profoundly stupid question. Not because it’s obviously wrong — how quickly they forgot you, Kolo! — but because they’ve forgotten the first rule of Arsenal: every signing is always the best signing ever. For there are no players better than Arsenal players, and so there are no better signings than Arsenal signings. This has the odd effect of making every signing simultaneously unnecessary and precisely what the squad needs, but what’s a little paradox between friends?
Did Arsenal really need a goalkeeper?
Yes.
OK. But did they really want one?
This a much more interesting question. Well done for asking it. It’s not as though Čech is literally the only keeper who amounts to an improvement on the Szczesny-Ospina double act. Yet it’s entirely possible that Wenger, doing that loyal thing he does, would have been perfectly happy to stick with them both. Which means that this is the first transfer in history where a drawn-out saga would have been kind of helpful; sadly for us on the outside peering in, things didn’t drag on long enough for any alternatives to rear their head.
(Maybe there was something in those Iker Casillas links; if so, then Wenger has robbed us all. Because a raging-against-the-dying-of-the-light Casillas, in the Premier League, would have been extraordinary. Watch as a man becomes simultaneously the best and the worst goalkeeper in the country.)
You could maybe say the same thing about a couple of Arsenal's recent big signings. Was Wenger actively looking for a willowy playmaker and a super-dynamic attacker, or was it just that Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez (and hey, maybe even Danny Welbeck) found themselves suddenly unwanted at their clubs? Perhaps that's Arsenal's brave new cash-flush policy: keep pottering along in a resolutely Wengerish fashion, only going big when the market throws up somebody unignorable.
Hmm. So are Arsenal going to buy anybody else?
That Čech makes Arsenal better is hard to argue with; that he makes them good enough to overhaul and supplant Chelsea is hard to argue. There are holes in the team and spaces in the squad. The question marks hovering above the heads of Francis Coquelin and Olivier Giroud are still there: neither looks particularly like a starter in a Premier League-winning side, much less a European challenger.
Mind you, nor does Gary Cahill. Good teams — even great teams — don’t need to be perfect; they need to be good enough, and they can get there without assembling a five-stars-in-every-position team. Football teams are complicated arrangements of individuals, and who’s to say that the presence of Čech in goal won’t ripple out through the team? A better goalkeeper begets a more confident defense. A more confident defense begets a more liberated midfield. A more liberated midfield begets more chances for the forwards. And then, yes, maybe Giroud plants them into the advertising boards. You can only do so much with stony ground.
Ah. Hang on. Is there any chance Čech could end up a bad signing?
Two. Both slim, but never mind. The first is that the cocktail will go the other way and blow up in Wenger’s face. Čech is a fine goalkeeper, but he’s a specific kind of goalkeeper, and already the chalkboard botherers have started fretting about whether Arsenal’s line is too high for Čech’s tastes. Remember André Villas-Boas? Remember how funny that was? What if ... what if that happens again?
Don’t worry, Arsenal fans! For a start, even if that’s all true, Čech’s great with crosses, so at least something will improve. And for an end, even if Arsenal’s method of defending and Čech’s method of goalkeeping are fundamentally incompatible — and that’s no sure thing — then it would take a manager of profound stubbornness not to tweak the latter for the former’s benefit. A manager of almost pathological stubbornness. Arsène Wenger, you say? Oh. Oh dear.
And the other one?
There’s one other question. It’s probably nothing, but it’s this: what if Čech isn’t quite Čech any more?
He probably is, of course; this is a man who came back from having his skull literally smashed in, and that makes a season on the bench look like, well, just so much sitting about. But, he’s 33, which is about the age goalkeepers begin their descent. He’s won everything there is to win, and he’s just spent his first season this millennium as a backup. Nobody is so unflappable as to be entirely unaffected by that, particularly not a player who clearly believes that he was good enough to be playing. And it could, of course, manifest itself as a burning desire to prove that clever Portuguese bastard wrong. Or it could, y’know, feel a bit like growing old.
Happens to us all.
Well, quite. All speculative, of course, and the general consensus is that Čech remains a very good goalkeeper and will be a very good signing. What we know for sure is that Mourinho hasn’t gotten his way while Wenger has, which is something of an enjoyable rarity. But all pleasure comes with pain, and it is truly a shame to see Wenger abandoning his attempt to top the invincible season by winning the thing without a goalkeeper. Whatever happened to personal pride, Arsène? You’ll never unlock the “No Hands!” achievement like this.
See More:
