It might seem to be a bit of a knee jerk reaction to be thinking about whether or not to drop Petr Cech from the Arsenal first team. After all it was only his first competitive game for the Gunners and as Arsene Wenger said, the whole team played badly.
But it was still a nightmare debut for the Czech Republic international and there is a good case for saying that his two mistakes against West Ham, especially the first one just before halftime, were the main reason why Arsenal lost the match rather than merely failing to win. And with the very reliable David Ospina in reserve, it is not as if Wenger does not have an excellent option.
What would have happened if Ospina had performed like that in his first Premier League start when he replaced Wojciech Szczesny after the Southampton defeat on new years day? I would suggest that the Colombian would have been dropped straight back to the bench. As it was, Ospina kept clean sheets in the next three games and hardly put a foot wrong from then on, with his one and only error coming in the 1-0 home loss to Swansea.
So Cech has already made more errors in goal than Ospina did in his 18 Premier League games for us. And I for one am very glad that we kept him at the club because we may soon need him. I reckon that Wenger will play Cech again at Crystal Palace on Sunday but if there is more trouble between the posts then I think it could be the bench for our only summer signing.
We cannot afford to be throwing away too many more points after all and even though it would be a massive blow to us and the keeper, would the boss really have much choice?
Let’s not start talking about dropping Cech. He’s quality…no doubt. He simply just had a shambolic off-day against W.Ham
Agreed. He is still quality and this will probably be his worst game for us. (hopefully)
We didn’t protect him enough! The set piece and no closing down on the second goal! Ospina coincided with Coquelin coming into the team which partly explains why he did so well. But also our defensive organisation improved markedly in the new year.
Cech will be fine!
I wouldn’t say he had such a bad day. Remember he has to get used to our back four who are not as well organised as Chelsea’s. When he realised that a regulation cross wasn’t going to be dealt with he tried to make it himself. Second goal was another defensive error and also a bit lucky. Still a great goalkeeper…
OT: I dropped a comment where Kompany mentioned how used to winning (BPL) Man City was…and I got thumbed down. 😀
In the past 6 years, this is how our competitors have fared:
2009-10- Chelsea
2010-11- Man Utd
2011-12 Manchester City
2012-13 Man Utd
2013-14 Manchester City
2014-15 Chelsea
Would you have believed 9 years ago if anyone told you that Arsenal will not win the BPL in a decade?
I’ll always cheer for Arsenal regardless. 🙂
This season should be Man Utd turn to win then….
C’mon guys, enough of this already. We lost to westham and the players were ashamed of themselves. Time to bounce back and give it a go. Plenty of games to come’, its better now than later. I know we hate losing and not to westham @ home in our first game but its better it happened NOW. If the team doesn’t WAKE UP or Bounce Back in this reality check, then I don’t know what to say
Cech is quality, dropping him after a game is a disgrace. He admitted his mistake on his twitter page and He is looking forward to the next game.
I’m tired of screaming for a new Striker and DM. I’ll only take one game @ a time. I still think we’ll mount a huge challenge for the title but I doubt we’ll win it so I’ll sit back and enjoy everygame as they come and see where we’ll seat on the table in December 2015.
Why does not Wenger come out and admit his mistakes and fix them? Thats the problem i have with Arsenal and not with the players.
Wenger needs to go, come on arsene go home you cant win anything with this team. Your tactics is out dated You wont adopt or change your beliefs so you should be fired we need a change and your out of ideas!!! again “You cant change the Manager, just Change the Manager.”
If only it was szszney or ospina who made those mistakes. Then everyone would have lost their minds.
Anyway let’s move on. And no more bullshit from the players. They should just shut up and do their talking on the pitch. I don’t want to hear about this ‘cohesion’ shit.
any news on the whereabouts of Wellington? Either sell him or play him.
Ridiculous article, author must have been seriously bored to come up with that nonsense.
My advice, next time keep your stupid opinion to yourself and stop wasting everyone’s time.
Think I’m about done with this forum now!
Not sure I agree with you dude, the thing about footballers is that if they make an error then they are instantly going to be rubbish going forward. It doesn’t matter that they hold the record for Premier League clean sheets.
Don’t forget that football fans love to moan and think they could do a better job. I think we should drop Cech and replace him with a player that everyone said is not good enough all summer, makes sense!
Wenger typically keeps faith with his under-performing players (Almunia, Arshavin, Ramsey, Giroud, Ozil etc.). It is premature for us to start talking about dropping Cech for now. However, if he keeps dropping clangers for the next 5 games or so, Wenger will drop him. You can be sure about that.
but if he howler the next game against Palace we will be finished…
it will be 2 lost in 2 games…title is almost over…
Ospina is far better than cech
It’s knew game. He shouldn’t be judged after one game.
Massive? Yes. Big howler? Yes.
But he is a pro. And the whole team was at fault.
It’s just that we think that at times like when the whole team is off the keeper should save us…and yeah someti s that’s what it is. But still unfair to drop him after just one game. More than unfair. ..kind of ridiculous.
Its not “knew” game. Meant to read “just one game”
i think cech doesnt have the cohesion with the team yet 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
The other conundrum that I see is that we shoul consider a new manager with a fresh take on how to win the EPL, losing the first game to a way inferior team at the Emirates is deja vu from the past, I can foretell that Wenger is now desperately trying to sign Benzema to apeace the fans, don’t know why he did not make the push back at the early stages, Real for sure will cash on this nervous last minute buy
Oh Ramsay,,,,,u r no xavi . live wid it dude.
Martinez has just been loaned out as well,
No doubt we will end up in a scenario of needing a 3rd choice keeper!
I personally think that too many of our young future star’s have been loaned out this season.
At first glance it gives you the impression that wenger will be signing 3 or 4 player’s but now it just seems as if the manager is penny pinching again… making a nice profit from loaning them out.
Arsenal fc is a business run club, Money first, football second.
Absolute nonsense, even with all the young lads out on loan, we still have 2 players for each position. With the exception of Jenkinson over Debuchy (may be) none of the lads would get in a 2nd x1 for us, yet alone our starting x1. Most of them are our 3rd best option, so the natural thing is to loan them out and promote the 4th best option to the u21s
Cech
Bellerin Gabriel koscielny Monreal
Coquelin cazorla
Chamberlain ozil alexis
Walcott
Ospina
Debuchy mertesacker chambers gibbs
Arteta ramsey
Welbeck wilshire rosicky
Giroud
Not in first 2 x1 flamini, campbell wellington
Now please tell me who would get replaced in those 2 starting x1s by any of these?
Szczesney,Martinez, Jenkinson, hayden maitland-niles, toral, crowley, gnabry, akpom, sanogo.
As I said only Jenkinson might force his way into that 22, with hayden over arteta a very slight possibility. I think wenger is doing exactly the right thing with these lads as next season, arteta, rosicky, flamini, campbell, will probably all be gone and ospina, mertesacker, Monreal, gibbs, Debuchy, Welbeck might also all find themselves out of the picture as well. Best see which of the youngsters are ready.
The u21s still have a strong line up with Macey, iliev, moore, johnson, pleguezuelo, oconnor, m.bola, kamara, bielik, zelalem, sheaf, Bennacer, iwobi, adelaide, c.willock, robinson, mavididi
And the U18 are also looking strong with Huddart, Keto, osei-tutu, da graca, pileas, t.bola, chatzitheodoris, Eyoma, Donovan, savvas, da silva, tabi, gilmour, dragomir, tella, malen, fortune, nketiah, hinds, j.willock
There is currently room for 2 new signings and that could rise to 4 if wellington and campbell move on, I still have a sneaky feeling that flamini and rosicky might yet leave as well.
He has not had much time to work an understanding with his back 4 and it was a bad day all round for us gooners really bad day.Lets also not forget he sat on the bench for most of last season
Give Petr Cech another chance. It happened and we can’t go back and change it. Lets move on as a team and hopefully this all will be forgotten after getting 3 points from Palace and us signing top striker and DM who could lift up the whole club.
The most damaging part is we did not score, conceding and sorting defense out is a different topic altogether and we should not worry about it. We had Cazorla as our CM, Ozil and CAM even if they decide to just walk around then also they can create plenty, but still we couldn’t score, isn’t that scary. We all should look at the stats, we had plenty of shots off target, so problem is being clinical, blaming a keeper for a goal is waste of time, but having such a offensive potential and not scoring a single goal that to against West Ham is poor.
Class is permanent, form is temporary. Cech was nervous and had an off day but he himself will know he can do better and will improve. I’m hoping the defeat is like the Aston Villa one which spurred us on to the top of the table.
OG is to blame for everything, he went to the wing because nobody was there to supply him. I was never his fan but he was one of the best of the day. We should stop sentiment and face reality.
Chec or Ospina? hard one to answer. Depends if Wenger chooses club before player or the other way around. Myself I think he`ll stay with Chec for political reasons and justify it by appearing to regain player confidence. Hard to argue against that.