One of the big reasons for Arsene Wenger making Petr Cech his one Arsenal transfer of the summer was for the experience that the former Chelsea keeper would bring to the club along with his undoubted ability in between the posts.
And it was not just his experience of playing for many years at the top level either, but his experience of winning major trophies, most importantly the Premier League title. In fact, the Czech Republic international has won one more EPL title than our manager and he has also been involved in some very tight battles at the top.
So he won it at a canter with Chelsea last season, Cech knows that this is not the norm and quite often the race goes down to the wire, as it did when they pipped Man United to the title in 2010 by one point with a final day win. And don’t forget that Man City made up a 10 point gap to beat United for their first Premier League title a few years ago.
So Cech is not just talking when he told the fans in post match comments reported by Arsenal.com that nothing is over yet. Far from it in fact.
“You need to look at the end and you need 86/87 points to be sure and it does not matter which way you go to get those points.” Cech said. “It does not matter if you have to catch up at the end of the season, which is what we have to do. Every time you lose points you need to keep believing. The boring part is if you play for 0-0 you have no chance. When you create chance after chance on another day you might score six goals and it might be different. We need to get ready for Sunday and get those points back.”
Just five points to make up and 14 games in which to do it is really not that much and perhaps we are better off chasing than leading. So listen to big Pete Arsenal fans, he knows what he is talking about.