Arsenal should have invested in Wojciech Szczesny over Petr Cech

Arsenal are bidding adieu to Wojciech Szczesny, which is absolutely asinine. They should have invested in him over Petr Cech.

Arsenal signed up Petr Cech to be their solution in goal for a handful of years and it worked out pretty damn well. You won’t find many people that disagree with that. But you are finding a ton of people who are disagreeing with the sudden offloading of Wojciech Szczesy to Juventus after he spent two years on loan at Roma.

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Szczesny has been given zero chance to work his way back into the Gunner’s first team.

This is all incredibly stupid. Szczesny’s goal in life was to be the No. 1 Arsenal keeper. That’s it. He held the job for awhile and did pretty well with it, but one fateful New Years Day match, he had a rough go, even though it was more so on the defense then on him.

One cigarette in the shower later and he hasn’t made an appearance for his beloved Gunners in three years.

What the hell is happening here? Szczesny is just about to enter into his prime and the Gunners are letting him walk for chump change and instead letting an aged Petr Cech hold the reigns between the goals, despite the fact that he got worse last year and is far past his prime.

Statistically, Szczesny is every bit Cech’s equal, if not his superior. When you look at their stats side by side using Squawka’s comparison matrix, that’s the truth we uncover. Clean sheets per 90 minutes played, Szczesny wins (.37 to .35).

Goals conceded per 90, Szczesny wins (1.00 to 1.08).

Distribution accuracy, Szczesny wins (80% to 64%).

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The only edge that Cech has is saves per goal, but that, like most of these stats, is so close it might as well be a scratch (2.64 to 2.45). They are equals. The problem with that is that they are trending in opposite directions.

These are two keepers who know what they’re doing. The difference is that Cech is going to get worse (every single stat mentioned above got worse from 2015/16 to 2016/17) and Szczesny is only going to get better (every single stat mentioned above got better from 2015/16 to 2016/17).

At the very least, Szczesny should have been afforded the chance to prove that he was capable of doing the job Cech does. Arsene Wenger had been making so much progress with not letting loyalty get in the way that I’m surprised he has allowed this to happen. What I really don’t get is why Szczesny would go study under Buffon and not Cech. Hopefully there will be an explanation.

And in terms of loyalty, I can’t help but feel that the Pole deserved so much more than he got. Not we get to watch him rise to become one of the best at Juventus while we hope to God that Cech doesn’t continue this downward trajectory.

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All we can do now is invest our hopes in Emi Martinez.