According to his national team doctors, Petr Cech needs elbow surgery. When I read that, I came very close to breaking something, which turns out to be a silly thing to do on account of this not actually being a big deal at all.
Petr cannot stretch the arm properly. If he has to stretch the elbow, it hurts him sometimes. There is nothing to be worried about, though. There is basically nothing that could make this problem worse.
The only thing that could force an immediate surgery is if the intensity of pain would get much higher or if the elbow was blocked in some way.
Petr Krejci, Czech national team doctor. Source: Sportovni noviny (translation via Ham & High).
Chelsea, apparently, are going to have Cech get some surgery at the end of the season to fix the issue. They'll presumably be clearing out some bone chip debris and such -- the sort of thing that'll keep him out of action for maybe a month before he can play at 100 percent again. Obviously, Chelsea couldn't do that last year because of the Euros, and sending Cech to the operating table now result in a potentially fatal overdose of Ross Turnbull, so this all makes perfect sense. Don't worry about the goalkeeper missing serious time over this, although I would expect him to be rested a little bit more this season.