Wojciech Szczesny has been linked strongly with a move to Juventus in recent weeks, and it now appears even more certain he’ll play his football there next season after comments by Gigi Buffon.
The legendary keeper spoke about his hopes for what looks to be his final campaign in a glittering career, and specifically mentioned the Arsenal man as somebody with whom he’d have to contend.
“This could be the last year and I would like to be a protagonist, as I have always dreamed of being,” he said.
“For me, it will be a great motivation twice because, although I am 39-40 years, I have to maintain my place.
“If I no longer want to play, I’ll stay at home because Donnarumma and Szczesny are good goalkeepers by merit, not because someone gave them something.
“It’s right that Juve want Szczesny.”
For those of us who would like to see the Polish stopper come back to the club, Buffon’s comments are a blow to those hopes.
The 27 year old kept the most clean sheets in Serie A last season, and with David Ospina likely to move on this summer and Petr Cech 35 years of age, he’s an ideal candidate for the future.
Unless, of course, we’ve got a signing lined up, which would go some way to explaining it.
Props to anyone that can do a song lyric/film title with Szczezny in it…
Wish him luck
Not exactly a response, but: I recall, way back, when there anti-Communist demonstrations from Gdawn to Gdusk.
That’s Gdawful
“I Am The One And Only” Szczesny Hawkes
Beat me to it
Well played; everybody else give up now.
Szczezny in equality shocker. Needs to Wojciech his privilege.
Addio Szczesny ??
Whatcha gonna do
When your well runs dry
Peter Tosh, “Till your well runs dry”
Wojciech gonna do
When your Arsenal bye?
I’m bringing Szcesney back,
Them other keepers don’t know how to act
Letting another home grown player go is a mistake, especially as the GK position is becoming increasingly short of options.
It’s incredibly odd as well.
Good enough to succeed Buffon but not good enough for Arsenal?
What’s the point of developing a keeper to this level only to let him go for peanuts?
He only has one year left and while not the most reliable the head of the polish fa claims szcezny said he will not play for Wenger again. Would explain a lot
Well, it would explain a lot if it were true. But Szczesny has made it clear–knowing Wenger would be the manager–that he would be happy to come back to Arsenal.
Maybe he will go to Juve, though following Buffon seems a formula for overwhelming pressure and supporter criticism. Maybe Juve’s main interest is that he does not play for Roma (or for another rival) next year.
“For now I’m an Arsenal player, so as soon as my loan finishes I have to come back and I’ve always said I’d love to be back there. But what will happen definitely won’t be decided now, but in a month or two months time”. That’s pretty non commital imo about returning
He’s very clearly stated that he would love to play for Arsenal and still follows the team. Not a lot of credibility to that claim.
realistically if your options are to back up cech on a team that’s in the Europa league and hasn’t competed for the league in over a decade or to back up one of the true greats on a team that will win the league and make a run at the champions league and take over the following year this isn’t even a debate. Why would anyone chose Arsenal in that situation?
But Scz has been quoted as saying:
Found my heart and broke it here
Made friends and lost them through the years
And I’ve not seen the roaring fields in so long, I know I’ve grown
But I can’t wait to go home
I’m on my way
Driving at ninety down those country lanes
Singing to “Tiny Dancer”
And I miss the way you make me feel, and it’s real
We watched the sunset over the castle on the hill
i read somewhere that based on statistics he was the second best keeper of serie a last season ahead of much lauded donnaruma. if arsenal let him go it would be a big mistake , particularly when cech is aging and ospina is leaving. a reliable goalkeeper is hard to come by.
Best, not second best.
Crazy decision if it happens, with ospina likely to move too, seems utter madness but this is arsenal a we do some silly things.
Just waiting for the sanchez move to city to top things off.
He had his own mind, you know that kind of thing isn’t allowed at the Arsenal.
I mean.. it was just a crafty smoke in the showers..
Would Pickford class as a homegrown player? Him, or Butland, would be the only way I could see sense in selling Szczcesny
Looking at the transfer odds (which is what I normally go on to see the veracity of rumors) we’re favourites to sign pickford, so that might explain it
Both would class as homegrown.
Bring back Woj I say!!
He is classed as a homegrown player. Even if not would make no sense in not taking him back
How much can we expect to get for Szczes?
Knowing how good we we’ve been lately in this business, I’d expect no more than 10m £ few footballs and a bag of jamon ruffles.
Anyway Szcz will need to decide to which world class keeper he’ll play second fiddle to next season. Unless he negotiates else. Then come champions league, club goals – all things we are somewhat inferior in comparison lately.
I still hope he signs.
At least at arsenal he’d play in the European games. Buffon won’t be sitting but out the champions league games in his final season
Thanks, would be ridiculous to sell him in my opinion. Unless they’ve made us an outstanding offer and we’ve already secured someone like Butland, both of which I very much doubt.
I do think he’ll be back with us this season
I really hope Scz stays. Offer him a new deal, with improved terms and all three cups as keeper. He’s a Gunner, through and through…
The man is 27 and has played every Series A and European game Roma were involved in this season, and would do the same at all but a handful of clubs in the world. He will want to be first choice
He will be understudy to Buffon
For one year as Buffon has already hinted this will be his last year. Then he takes over one of the best teams in Europe. No brainer from his perspective
It’s quite simple really. Either Wenger gets on with it and puts together a team who can have a rip-roaring go at the title and generate an entirely new feeling around the place to last year….OR we lose 4-3 at home to someone on the first day of the season or we lose two from our first 5 and he’ll be out on his ear quite quickly as chaos and the red mist decends from fans who want their club to behave in a normal way.
Either way, we’ll get there in the end Mr Wenger.
If we sell SZCZ for some absurdly low fee like we always do I’m gonna break something. City just paid 35M for some unknown keeper we better be getting at least 20-25M #SameOldArsenal
No, he only has a year left on his contract. We’ll probably get around 15.
To me it’s worth the 15 to see if in a year we can convince him to stay.
Ederson is some unknown keeper? Christ.
Tells you a lot about the commenters on here upvoting a comment like this.
I heared we´ll be swapping Szcz for Dybala…. is it april 1st yet?
Even if we have someone else lines up I can’t really think of anyone that we could realistically get that would be better
Wojciech gonna do when she says goodbye
Donnarumma is at Milan if I’m not mistaken so perhaps he’s just talking about Juve’s targets?
Donnarumma for Italy
Fair point. But competition with Szczezny just for overall clean sheets in Serie A? Trying to be optimistic here!
Good riddance. He’s rubbish anyways – Arsenal Twitter.
Golden gloves in 2014 now has proved in Serie A to be a great keeper. Nonsense comment
I think all you downvoters missed the point.Mr Eko was mocking Arsenal Twitter for unfairly criticising players just because they play for Arsenal.
How are we letting Sneezy go? Because he had a smoke in the showers? There has to be more to this. Behind closed doors. He’s had a fantastic season last year and he was in our youth team. Bringing him back is so logical but this is Arsenal for you. I hope he comes back and pushes Cech to he at his best. With Ospina basically out the door we really only have Emi to rely on competition for the starting position.
He only said that Juve want him. So nothing new.
Why would he want to come back? I can’t see any reason for Szczesny to return to Arsenal.
Because we pay his huge wages, he apparently loves the club, performs weekly in one of the world’s best stadiums, trains in the best training ground…the lsit goes on. Why woudln’t he want to come back?
So he should come “home” to the next season club with the almost manager instead of moving to the Serie A champions and CL finalist. Give me a fucking break.
So we have Gnabry joining Bayern and Szczesny possibly joining Juventus…it seems a lot of people at the club have underestimated our youth talents.
Criminal incompetence in the contract negotiation and recruitment/retaining of players department, once again.
oh fuck me, the italian job anyone?
Lots of ducked up news for Arsenal fans eh!
To be a gooner
Very ducked up
Arsenal can’t be dumb enough to do this…oh wait.
Juventus willing to pay 15m for Chesney with only 1 year left on his contract. Ospina going for 3m. Food for thought for great ‘Ospina is miles better than Chesney’ brigade.
“unless we’ve got a signing lined up” – who might that be? Which top keeper out there is available right now?
This summer is going nowhere. Slowly for now, but soon enough we will be as beleaguered and disappointed as Arsene with his legacy.
Sebastien Frey. Haven’t you all heard?
Joe Hart?
Yeah, let’s sell the best keeper in serie a and buy the 16th best one to replace him.
Actually, that does sound like something we’d do. Sigh.
The other crazy thing about this is that the supposed obstacle to Szczesny coming back is that he’d have to compete with Cech for a year, but if he goes to Juve, he’ll have to do the same with Buffon. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US AS A CLUB???? HOW COULD WE HAVE BEEN SO STUPID AS TO NOT SEE THAT IT WAS WORTH TYING UP SZCZESNY ON A LONGTERM DEAL BEFORE NOW, AS HE’S GOT A TON MORE ABILITY THAT OSPINA.
We are weak, and pander to the whims of our millionaire, entitled players. Somehow we feel it is best to offload at the slightest hint of speculation. ‘We only want players who want to be at Arsenal’ we cry. Morally you can’t fault the sentiment. The sad situation with football is that anyone would want to play for Arsenal, if you paid them enough. ‘Achievement’ is merely a platitude to earn a fatter paycheck. If it were me personally, I would make Sanchez, Ozil, Ox and Szczesny see out their contracts and use the year to persuade them the virtues… Read more »
What the fuck are we doing this window? He loves arsenal, hates sp*rs, is one of the best stoppers in Italy, the CL finalists want him and is the perfect age. He is under contract, Ospina is leaving. Bring his home ffs! It should not even be a debate.
Are we targetting Alban lafont
If Szcz goes to Torino to content with the greatest goalkeeper that ever lived, i would understand that move completely.
But i would only sanction it if we had someone like Oblak or Donnarumma coming in..
When the keeper, who is not good enough for you, wins a major trophy before you…
This is sad I think Sczcesny is a keeper
Seems like there is defo contact with Arsenal and Sunderland over Jordan Pickford
Difference between them wanting the pole in their goal and him or Arsenal wanting to agree to the move – shut it buffoon!!!
That sounds rude
Another difficult transfer situation of one of our players due to use letting another contract run down to 1 year left.
There needs to be serious questions as to why we keep letting this happen.
I buy Donnaruma to back up Cech in FIFA so this makes no sense to me.
Just because Buffon praised him, doesn’t mean that a move to Turin is imminent. Buffon just helps his team finding successor and trying to get Scheczny away from other serie A suitors.
Godamnit. Why Arsenal why??!! If he is leaving, I wonder who are our alternatives? Pickford, Butland? Hart will leave City this season, and I think he will be available at a decent fee, so I wonder if we will be looking at him too.But Hart is still kinda inconsistent, so its a tough choice
But we need Sczes back.Re-sign him Dick Law!!!!!
He’s good enough for Juve yet we’re going to sell him for a few magic beans? Well done Arsenal, more proof a director of football and a basic understanding of football at the board level is a waste of time. Gnabry, Szczesny are the two most recent examples that the club isn’t even that good at the business side of things.
People need to remember we have Martinez who is more proffessional and can be the perfect understudy of Cech
It seems a lot of people think this is simply a case of “bring him home, give him a new contract, and that’s that”. It’s not. He’s getting a chance to take over as the #1 of one of the top clubs in the world, filling the shoes of the greatest goalkeeper to ever live (probably).
Simply being an Arsenal fan might not be enough to turn down such a scenario. It must be mouth watering for any goalkeeper.
I was at Roma-Lazio some weeks ago and he looked really good. Some good saves, Roma played shit sadly (I support them a bit). Would be a shame