Our newest signing the great Petr Cech has been filling the papers with his first interviews for the Gunners, and he seems very confident that Arsenal can go on to great things if they continue their form from the end of last season. But Petr believes that the Gunners slow start was the only reason that they did not really challenge Cech’s old team Chelsea for the League title.
“It is [an exciting time] because you could see clearly that this team has a big potential,” Cech told Arsenal.com. “Especially in 2015, the team had a very good run and you can see how many talented players came through and played really well.
“I believe that towards the end of the season, they found the balance and played really good football as well as finding the winning touch where they found three points in important games.
“It’s just a pity that the season lasts all year. You have to start and finish well, which was Arsenal’s problem last season – the points they dropped at the start of the season were costly for them in the title race at the end.
“Winning back-to-back FA Cups is a great achievement and I hope that the team can pick up where it started in 2015 and carry that on during the whole season.”
The FA Cup wins have given us a squad that now knows how to give us trophies, and will have much more confidence going into the new campaign especially with Petr behind our improved defence. Can you imagine how much more successful we would have been in the last ten years if Cech was in goal instead of the Szczesnys, the Fabianskis and the Almunias that we have grown used to since Jens Lehmann left us all those years ago.
Cech told us that this very nearly happened, but visa problems stopped him moving to the Gunners early in his career, despite Arsene Wenger being very keen on signing him. “There was a chance before I went to France [to join Rennes] that I could sign for Arsenal but I was only 18 or 19 and at that time Czech Republic were not in the European Union,” Cech continued on the official Arsenal website.
“You needed a work permit and the conditions were to play 75 per cent of the first-team games for the national team, which at the time was impossible for me to get. In the end I went to France because I couldn’t get a work permit.
“I had a few teams who were interested but Arsenal was one of the main ones. I was so excited because of the Premier League and big clubs but unfortunately it was not the time for me to come.
“It was later with Chelsea, and I’m obviously grateful for that, but you can never prepare the ways in your life and you’ll never know where you’ll end up. Here we are and I hope that I can replicate all I’ve managed to achieve in the past decade.
“If I could have got the permission, maybe my story would have been a completely different story but here we are 10 or more years later, and now we can write the story again.”
In his 11 years at Chelsea he won 13 trophies. He is a winner and he has the experience to rise to the occasion. If Cech can be half as successful in his time as Arsenal’s Number One, I will be more than happy!