Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has claimed that Arsenal are not playing to their best abilities at present, but showed great character when falling a goal behind against Southampton.
The Gunners snatched a last-minute win against the Saints on Saturday, with the help of a Santi Cazorla penalty in injury time, having come back to 1-1 before half-time, and scrapping for the win for much of the second half.
Cech is keen to take the positives from the result despite the way that that it finally came, and is also confident that there is much more to come from Arsenal this season.
He said: “I think we are not 100 per cent yet.
“Our game is not as fluent as it could be and it should be. But I think we are getting the results that we need and this is the most important sometimes when you are playing and you know not everything is happening the way you want, that you find a way to win games.
“Obviously we did so, so we are happy with the three points and we go game by game and try to improve every day.
“I think our reaction (to going behind) was very good, we got a goal back in the first half, we tried to push for the winning goal. It came in the last minute but I think we were aggressive and we were searching for it so in the end we probably deserved a little bit of luck back.”
The result was a very important one, and we deserved the win at the end of the day, but Cech is definitely right in that we are not playing our best as of yet.
Were you impressed with the spirit shown to come from behind and win? Will we push on now and get back into the title race?
Pat J
The ability for top teams to take points while playing badly cannot be underestimated.
United and City both showed they’re far from perfect and Chelsea finally dropped some points as well. Let’s hopefully just keep getting wins and get a bit of momentum and confidence going.
With a few key players rested a good result in Paris will hopefully do wonders.
To me, what it matters the most is the fact that Arsenal did not kicked the ball out when Long was down. And the most important thing they did not kicked it when Kos was down. That means our Arsenal is not that nice and dandy anymore. We won from what everyone calls an “unfair” penalty. I lost count how many time we lost due to unfair circumstances that I want Arsenal to have as many of these moments as possible just to win it.
I don’t know if you realize but this is what gives a team a label like “ruthless” . We are in for the win and we don’t care how it’s done as long as it gets us over the line.
Personally, I am a bit torn whether to accept or not such philosophy but I guess that if it brings results I just have to keep my mouth shut.
We want result…..We want a major trophy so we must win at all cost. Like you pointed out, the usual Arsenal will knock the ball out when Long or Kos went down. Then we will be tagged nice and clean team but end up losing. How many times have we heard things like we played so well, crisp passing but Arsenal end up losing the game.
This season we will win some games emphatically with the Arsenal style. Other times, it will be ugly and cagey (Not the Arsenal style).
The three points on Saturday was so vital as Manchester United and Chelsea drop points. Manc are flying high but they will drop some points as well. We just have to keep winning. Let’s go on a winning spree.. .
Three point per match count much. I don’t care much how is packaged for now only we catch up and give a gap.
Grind out the wins even when off form, I will like it most especially against Sp*d, Pool, Chelsea and the Manchester teams.
1. Koscielny and Cazorla must surely still be tired after carrying the rest of the team on their backs for 90 minutes on Saturday.
2. This is good for a laugh. Conte claims players are targeting Costa. Yes, Costa is the victim. And this after Costa was diving unashamedly for the entire game on Sunday. I can feel myself shedding a few tears for the poor misunderstood Costa.
This is what happens when transfer business is left to the last minute. Both the new players and the team struggle to acclimatise. Perez hardly looked as if he had played football before. He had clearly been let out onto the pitch without any instruction. Kos looked after Mustaffi until he got settled. But what was the plan? Surely new guys should have at least a good look at the team to get a picture and maybe visualise themselves fitting in. Any ideas?
Perez played one game. Mustafi half a game before joining. It was the perfect opportunity to show them how the game is played here. Risky but in the end it worked. Personally I find that Wenger took out Perez exactly at the wrong moment when the game began to open up but hey, can’t complain about the 3 points. Thank you very much.