Cech says Arsenal turned him down

Cech says Arsenal turned him down

It is hardly breaking news as Cech has already spoken about this before.

I remember the whole Cech speculation in 2004 – I remember hearing a lot about a young promising keeper playing for Rennes. We had a deal agreed but changed our mind allegedly when the work permit was getting processed.

This is Cech´s version but I would not be surprised if this is the Chelsea´s official line.

I tend to believe that we did not pull out of the Cech race but right at that time in 2004, Abrahamovic was just buying for fun. Having just purchased Chelsea, he spent his first two seasons paying a lot of cash for a number of players just to prise them away from rival clubs. Exactly like Manchester City´s current strategy.

For instance, Arsenal and Lyon were in advanced negotiations over the signing of Michael Essien prior to the summer of 2005. The deal being discussed was £10m with Arsenal trying to haggle over the price as usual.

Lyon was asking for a price closer to £15m but the negotiations were well under way and it was going to be concluded, a bit like the protracted Nasri-Marseilles deal.  From nowhere though appeared Chelsea´s roubles and they priced Arsenal out of a deal by bidding £24.4m for the Ghanaian international.

The same thing must have happened with Cech. Knowing Wenger, he must have valued Cech at less than £5m – remember, at that time he was only a 21-year old rookie keeper.

Chelsea came with a much better offer of £7m, which in fairness was a lot for a 21-year old keeper , especially seven years ago!

I am sure some people will blame Wenger for not buying him and perhaps Cech knows what he is doing by reigniting this old story during our goalkeeping crisis.

But it is good to remember that Chelsea´s money did over-inflate the transfer market for a while just like Manchester City´s money is currently doing.