Arsenal: Petr Cech retirement requires extra spending

Petr Cech will retire from football at the end of the season. The Arsenal goalkeeper’s departure now requires extra spending in the summer window.

Petr Cech will retire at the end of the season. The Arsenal and Chelsea goalkeeper stated that he has achieved everything he wanted to achieve in football, is now in his 20th year as a professional, and feels that this is the time to call it a day.

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A measure of the man, the player and his professionalism is the fact that he is popular in almost every circle. Chelsea fans hold no grudge against him. Arsenal fans recognise his experience and winning mentality. Even Premier League neutrals understand his storied and extended greatness in the league. He could be the greatest goalkeeper of the Premier League era.

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The announcement to retire, it is important to note, may well have taken the Gunners by surprise a little. When Arsene Wenger announced his resignation at the end of last season, there were marketing campaigns, social media videos, brilliant pieces of content on the website, Twitter and Facebook. It took them a whole morning to come up with the below tweet for Cech’s retirement, which was announced in the night with a tweet. I don’t think they were ready for Cech to publicly declare his retirement.

They will, however, need to be ready to replace him in the summer. Cech was the ideal reserve goalkeeper. Experienced, understanding, ready to push Bernd Leno as the starter but also accepting of his position. When he departs at the end of the year, Arsenal will be left with just Emiliano Martinez and Matt Macey as potential reserve goalkeepers behind Leno.

Martinez is 26, the same age as Leno. He has very limited first-team experience — for context, Leno is the same age and is closing in on 400 senior appearances. Macey, similarly, has played just two games for the Gunners first team, once in the EFL Cup and once in the Europa League. He is currently the starting goalkeeper for Plymouth in League One, but it is a major step up to reserve goalkeeper in the top six of the Premier League.

It is clear, then, that Cech’s impending departure forces the club’s hand somewhat. And that is problematic. Money is already tight with some rather testing wages stretching the budget. And there are already plenty of positions that require investment in the summer, from centre-back through to a new winger.

Adding in a reserve goalkeeper to the mix only makes Unai Emery’s and Sven Mislintat’s job harder. Now they have to find another player in the summer on the same, limited budget. And there is no guarantee that a productive player can be convinced to sit behind Leno.

Suddenly, a reserve goalkeeper is a position of rather great need. That means extra spending, and that is not a good thing whatsoever. Nonetheless, to Cech, we thank him for his service to the club and wish him a blessed and happy retirement.