Arsenal: Sticking with Petr Cech safe, and therefore questionable

Unai Emery has announced that Arsenal’s starting keeper will be Petr Cech, which isn’t a wrong choice. But there are questions that should be asked.

Arsenal‘s tightest positional battle of the summer has been resolved via a formal announcement by Unai Emery. Apparently, he will be sticking with Petr Cech, same as Arsene Wenger did, to handle the primary keeper duties, at least from the start.

This is kind of a big decision, yet all I could think when I heard it was “meh.” Not because it is a bad decision. Honestly, I don’t think either option would have amounted to a bad decision. But because it is a safe and unremarkable decision.

To be fair, this played out exactly as it should have, with two players, each wanting to be a No. 1, fighting for the role until the last moment, at which point the victor was named and given the spoils of the position.

But I feel like the decision should have swung the other way. Cech is a fantastic choice for captain, he’s going to play a huge role, but the simple fact of the matter is that he lost that starting job last year, but had no one to take it from him, so he kept it by default.

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There is no default now. Forgiveness is great, and showing faith in a guy who certainly deserves it is great, but I was hoping for something a little more competitive. A little more driving. For lack of a better word – a little more cutthroat.

One of the main problems Wenger had was with having too much faith in players, to the point that it hurt the team. He would never take guys out of the starting XI because he had seemingly infinite faith in them, no matter how much better someone else might have done.

I’m not saying that there is too much faith put in Cech, I’m just saying that I was really hoping for a change in that policy, because at the end of the day, a player having to fight for and earn back his role (and I’m not talking preseason) is going to do him more good than never losing it at all.

Or maybe I’m just being a contrarian. I’d like to think I’m not, though.

I hope the best of Cech is back. Obviously. We all do. I just kind of wish he had to work a little harder to get back to this.