Arsenal Get Their Man As Petr Cechs In

One of the worst kept secrets in football became a reality testerday when Petr Cech finally signed on the dotted line for Arsenal. They captured his services for an undisclosed fee believed to be in the region of £11 million on a long term contract.

Chelsea weren't overly anxious to let Cech go and Jose Mourinho was apparently not happy at all to see him join a rival. Cech thanked Roman Abramovic in particular for making the transfer happen and it looks like the owner is still making plenty of footballing decisions at Chelsea despite Mourinho's wishes. In one of those funny quirks of fate Cech's first proper game for Arsenal will more than likely be the Community Shield game against Chelsea.

It's great to see Arsenal doing business so early in the transfer window again and Cech's signature has to be seen as a real boost to their chances for next season. It also means the club probably have more keepers than they need and the chances are one of them will be on the way quite soon. There's plenty to be said for both David Ospina and Wojciech Szczesny, but it would seem Ospina looks the most likely to be on his way.

He took over as the first choice keeper in January after Szczesny had a poor game against Southampton and was caught smoking in the showers. He only arrived last summer though and played well after getting his chance, but he might not want to play second fiddle to Cech. If Arsenal are going to cash in on Ospina they might have chosen a good time to get the maximum price after his excellent displays for Colombia in the Copa America. 

I've said before that I'm not sure if Cech is that much better than either Ospina or Szczesny and isn't as good as he was a few years ago. I could be wrong of course, but ever since his head injury inflicted upon him by Stephen Hunt I have thought he lost something in his game. I don't think he's as quick to come off his line as he used to be and he's not as commanding on crosses either. I'm no expert though and I look forward to him proving me completely and utterly wrong as he excels in goal and helps Arsenal to win more trophies.

He already has plenty of winners medals from his 11 years at Chelsea and he's very close to setting a record of his own. I think he needs three more clean sheets in the Premier League to beat the record currently held by David James and it shouldn't take him too long to overtake him. He's still only 33 and goalkeepers tend to improve with age so he has plenty of years in goal for Arsenal ahead of him.

There's still plenty of work for Arsenal to do in the transfer market this summer of course, but the signs are very promising. Cech has arrived nice and early and it gives the club plenty of time to concentrate on their other targets. As players start to move from one club to another there is always a knock on effect and hopefully some of Arsenal's targets will be available sooner rather than later. I could almost write a book on the amount of players linked with the club at the moment, but only time will tell who the real targets are and whether Arsenal can acquire their services or not.

That's it for today.

See you tomorrow.