Public Blessing from Jose Mourinho for Petr Cech Move, But Tune Will Change if Arsenal Win Title Next Season

Jose Mourinho, in what is clearly a nice little PR exercise, has publicly given his blessing to the Petr Cech to Arsenal transfer, with the Chelsea manager saying "I support the owner's decision to honour the player in this way."

These quotes, from the official Chelsea website, were expected, after several stories were put out claiming how Mourinho will be fuming at the transfer of Cech to one of their Premier League rivals in Arsenal.

At the end of the day, Mourinho did not have a choice in the matter – if he did, Cech would have stayed at Stamford Bridge and seen out his contract, or as a last resort moved to a club outside the Premier League – it was all Roman Abramovich.

A grand gesture it was too from the Chelsea owner, with the Russian allowing Cech to choose his next club once it became clear he wanted to leave Stamford Bridge this summer.

"Petr has been a great servant for Chelsea for 11 years and helped this club to win almost everything there is to win," Mourinho said on the official website of Chelsea.

"I always said I wanted him to stay but I understand Petr needed to move on to play first team football every week. Sometimes you have to respect the wishes of someone who has earned so much respect with his service and actions for your club. I support the owner's decision to honour the player in this way.

"It is very rare in football to make a decision like this and for that reason I am proud of my club for making it. There are not many clubs in the world big enough to be able to make that decision.

"Petr's success at this club will always to be remembered and we thank him for everything he did."

Those quotes were followed by ones from Cech, praising Mourinho. Probably warranted, after Cech failed to mention Mourinho in his farewell letter to the Chelsea fans.

"He [Mourinho] had to make his decision at the start of last season, I had to make my decision at the start of this season but I will always keep the best regards for him because I believe that we had so much success and so much respect for each other," Cech said.

"He is one of the best managers in the world. Now, we will be opponents but it will not change our relationship, I believe.

"I learned a lot from him and one of those things was that if you have to make a hard decision, you need to make sure that you do it if you believe it is the right choice."

You can almost imagine it can't you. Someone from the PR section of the club writing down those words for Mourinho, and then handing it over to the Portuguese to sign and give his reluctant but-what-else-can-I-do OK.

If it was up to Mourinho, the last club Cech would sign for would be Arsenal – Chelsea's London rivals and a team looking more and more capable of rivalling them for the Premier League title.

Imagine if Cech proves to be the deciding factor in the title race – pulling off some stunning saves against the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham – to ensure Arsenal hold a winning record over their rivals in the season.

That has been Arsenal's bane of late, not being able to pull off consistent results against the title rivals, while also dropping their guards in key matches against the other teams.

Arsenal improved on the picking-up-points-over-rivals front last season, but if Cech can inspire Arsene Wenger's men to pick up three points against the big teams consistently, it could prove to be the difference between a third/fourth-place finish and a sustained challenge for the title.

Mourinho knows that as well as anyone, which is why he did everything he could – voice his opinion publicly and privately – to stop the sale when Wenger came calling.

However, at Chelsea there is only one big man, and that is Abramovich.

But, just don't expect Mourinho to take it too well, if Cech ends up being the most important piece of the title puzzle for Arsenal.