Would Chelsea Be Better Off Selling Petr Cech?

In what seems like cruel twist of fate, Chelsea’s ever present shot stopper Petr Cech is on the verge of leaving the Blues after over 10 years of exemplary goalkeeping.

It seems like yesterday when the Italian Carlo Cudicini, one of the best goal keepers in the Premier league back then suffered the same fate when a 22 year old Cech first came to the club.

Now it seemed the tables have turned and the Czech international, suddenly finds himself an ‘old man’ fighting to maintain his relevance in the team.

The 34 year old has been graceful thus far, but has made clear his dissatisfaction with the current state of things, even though he admitted he would have loved to stay.

“Everyone is asking me what if and what will happen. As a player that has two years on his contract, I cannot make the choice. It’s simple. If the club says; you are staying here, then I’ll be staying. I can only leave if the club lets me go and that is not the case”

“I’m doing my best to change the situation. I want to play as often as possible and be prepared to be as good as possible for the fixtures in the New Year”- Petr Cech on Friday

It is however clear that the club needs to make a decision as the situation seems to have taken a twist with both Arsenal and Roma thought to be interested. Although the Blues are not naturally a selling club, it is their usual practice to sell any player they no longer have use for.

It is obvious that the London side is spoilt for choice with Thibaut Courtois, Petr Cech and Mark Schwarzer all being world class goal keepers. With the Blues currently dealing with a shortage of home grown players, going one foreign player less wouldn’t hurt them at all.

There are very few clubs in the world football that would lose a player like the Czech international and not experience a drop in quality and Chelsea is one of those clubs.

The Belgian Courtois is at least on the same level with the 34 year old with almost 10 years to get even better before he reaches the age that Cech currently is.

As far as back-ups go, the Australian Schwarzer would be the best backup in the league as he is currently third on the overall clean sheet log, just behind Englishman David James and his Chelsea teammate Cech.

Current No 1 for the Blues Courtois seems to sympathize with his rival and admits that he too would be looking towards the exit door if the same situation had befallen to him;

“As a goalkeeper you want to play. If I was in that situation where I didn’t play a lot, then I would leave too” – Courtois

One thing that is however very clear, is that Chelsea seem not to have a lot to lose as they could sell the aged goalkeeper for millions and still retain the overall quality in the goalkeeping department.