Petr Cech says he’d like to stay at Arsenal, despite the fact there hasn’t been an offer of a new contract from the club, and insists that while the top four this season is the priority, winning a trophy in Unai Emery’s first season is in also their sights.
The veteran keeper kept a much welcomed clean sheet as the Gunners ran out 3-0 winners over Blackpool in the FA Cup third round on Saturday evening, but hasn’t played a Premier League game since September when an injury opened the door for Bernd Leno.
The German has been considered the number 1 since, but if there was a chance to continue in North London, the 36 year old would welcome that.
“I just do my job and in the end we can easily sit and discuss it, so we will see,” he told the Evening Standard.
“After the transfer window we will talk and see where we are.”
And on what this team hopes to achieve, he continued, “Our priority is to get into the top four – be in the Champions League and then you want to progress and evolve as a club, as a team.
“We have a new manager and obviously we set our targets so if we can win a trophy together in the first season it would be a good achievement.
“You play every game to win and this time we were in the FA Cup, we have the tradition as a club to do well and if we can win it, we’d like to do so.
“It is the same with the Europa League – we started really well and are in the last 32.
“These are two targets but the Premier League remains a big objective, to get into the top four.”
Bad squad management providing Sanllehi and Mislintat a challenge
I guess him staying is a good idea, I’d expect Martinez to go so he’ll be useful to help with the younger keepers (of which we seem to have a lot)
He started the season well.
Can’t see Leno as a better keeper. Only advantage he has is ball control with his feet.
The latter can pass comfortably for a few yards only, but is terrible in long distributions.
Since we lost our focal point for long distributions (Giroud) all our keepers would struggle to pass it comfortably to any of our players. Not even Aubameyang who has the height to do so doesn’t challenge much…
I’d say they’re fairly close overall (different strengths and weaknesses) but Lenos age give him the room to improve whereas cech will continue to decline as he gets older
Cech is a vastly superior keeper. Just sawh on Saturday how much better he is at handling crosses than Leno and so much greater command of his area.
Agree. Cech gives me much more confidence in handling crosses, catching them rather than flapping at them.
We’ve got an awful lot of work to do already this summer, giving Cech another year wouldn’t be the worst idea. We’ve got Monreal, Lichtsteiner, Welbeck, Rambo out of contract, and there’s a good argument for moving Koscielny on ASAP as well if there’s an opportunity to do so? If we don’t renew any of these? And we spent £10mill on each of their replacements ? Then that’s £60mill, and likely to be our lot in terms of expenditure, and I’m not sure what level of replacements we’d get for £10mill a piece either? Looks like some really trying times… Read more »
Internal solutions are likely to key here. At the very least saka, medley, Maitland Niles can cover. I’d rather spend the bulk of that hypothetical 60million on a centre back W who’s early to mid 20s
Mainland Niles is already considered a first team squad player, and Nelson might be ready for a squad place next season….
Saka and Medley will be 18+19 next season, how many teenagers are currently playing in the PL? And how many break through at clubs with CL aspirations without at least a season elsewhere first?
Its fanciful that we can replace that level of experience with teenagers with no experience whatsoever, without taking a hit on results in the medium term.
Halve his wages! From100k to 50k
He is smart enough to understand
I suspect that’ll be key to him getting a mdw contract. We can’t really justify those wages for a second choice keeper
“Cech waiting to see if Leno is going to slip and let him be no.1 again”
There are always people who like to invent crisis around Ozil and similarly they now want to imagine problems that are not there with Cech. he’s older now and frankly there is little need for him to prove anything. Even at National level, he is either an automatic pick regardless of playing time at club level or he should be making way for a younger successor. If he should want to remain at Arsenal for the next 2 seasons or so, there is no issue other than if the club should decide to save some change on his salary with… Read more »
Sanheli and Mslintat (in particular) are part of the reason of bad squad management. Last January I mentioned Mslintat did NOT buy well. We should have sold Alexis to City even at lower price. We could have made a quick bid for Mahrez and brought in a playewr to balance the squad out right side. Instead we left one bidder in the game for the Chilean and lay ourselves prey to UNited and Raiolla. We were then forced to take Mhkitaryan, a player who performs pretty much similar function as an Ozil or Ramsey. Instead of locking down Ramsey, we… Read more »