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.
Yes, five points isn’t much to make up, but we’re not chasing one team though. There’s three teams above us, and Man U are right on our tails now.
I said before that we were only top because of the inconsistencies of others, not because we’ve progressed. Now that other teams are showing some consistency, we’ve quickly slipped down the table because, as I’ve already said, we’re not progressing. In fact, given the quality in our squad compared to others, and the consistently poor performances, one could argue that Arsenal are actually regressing.
We are, from Henry and RVP to Walcott and Giroud. I love Giroud but he’s not the kind of striker tha wins you league titles. Look at Suarez already with 33 goals so far this season, and Liverpool got him from the Dutch league. Wenger’s excuses make no sense and fans should stop supporting his blind beliefs. How can you buy Sanogo and complain that there’s not enough quality ?? Pretty sure there are 5-7 forwards with more potential than Walcott, he’s been here 10 years and is still the same player that lacks the mentality of a world class striker.
vs bournemouth: i’d like us to have 30+ shots on goal. sick of the passing. and someone should tell our guys to choose a side and shoot to the side; not straight ahead!
i’m hoping a few people find their scoring boots.
and that wenger leaves soon.
my dear Cech
Things are falling apart….there is cause to panic
{well, until there is a wake up call}
I agree with the Cechstar 🙂
Feb6/7
Man City v Leicester. (H) win.)
Spurs v Watford (H) win
Boumthrn v Arsenal. (A) win.
Feb 14th
Arsenal v Leicester (H) win
Man City v Spurs (H) win
Table after 14th Feb.
Man City 53
Arsenal 51
Leicester 50
Tot 48
If Arsenal have not progress but are repressing, others must have repressed too along the line. But now that the others have started to progress from their regressing, together we shall progress. And Arsenal will be most progressed among the pack of the progressers at the end of the season.
Keep living in delusion
If we were scoring goals, then yes, I wouldn’t put it beyond us to draw level with Leicester and Kompany. Unfortunately, though, we’re scoring at the rate of 1 goal per 360 mins or something like that.
Clearly it would be better to be chased cf. chasing. 5 points in 14 games in a season like this? I don’t see why not.
Any other day and we would have scored 3-4 goals vs Soton and won comfortably but it still remains that we have a problem of balance on the right side of the pitch, and this was painfully obvious in the last game.
If we talk about pre-assist passes (the pass which allows the player to make an assist) we should equally talk about pre-dispossesion passes (the pass which gives the receiving player no chance and he loses possession). Without any particular stats, visually it appeared disproportionately weighted to our middle-right. What was also noticeable was the lack of fluid “triangles” on the right and Soton appeared to have a far more effective press on our right side. This creates a little more haste in our passing either by Flamini, Campbell or Hector – so when you combine lack of fluid triangles (effectlvely means players aren’t moving to the right positions to create the outlet pass), the relative inexperience of Hector and Campbell, the limited passing range of Flamini, and the efficient press of Soton – the right side was spluttering.
I think it would have been far more balanced with Ramsey permanently stationed on the right side when partnered with Flamini. You could see a massive difference in the balance when Coquelin came on because he has better positional movement and a broader passing range but this was somewhat diluted by Walcott replacing Campbell. TW14 is very short on confidence right now which is leading to very poor decision-making and as I have said in earlier posts – the boy needs to take up meditation, clear his mind and do some positive visualisation.
I was quite surprised AW played Flamini and Ramsey in this game. Maybe the medico’s advised that we should gradually increase Coquelin’s workload. Having said all that, there was really nothing actually wrong with the team. Clean sheet, no injuries, umpteen goal scoring chances – just didn’t get the ball in the net! Like I said up front, on any other given day we would’ve had 3 or 4 goals.
We’ve certainly made it more difficult for ourselves but I suspect this season is going to throw up more curve balls yet for lots of teams.
“On any other given day”… Did you forget the 4-0 thrashing Soton gave us ? Or the fact we haven’t beaten them for the past 2 years like Stoke and Chelsea ?? Our problems are deeper than tactics, the manager doesn’t know how to motivate the team to overcome their psychological problems that’s the fact, what kind of title winning team gets beaten 4-0 more than twice every season ?
I didn’t see anything in that game which suggested we lacked motivation or that the team was suffering psychologically. What I saw was a failure to convert good goal scoring chances through a combination of poor finishing and good goal-keeping.
What I was suggesting in my post, even if we did put away 2 or 4 or 5 goals, we still have the problem on the right side. Even if Soton couldn’t exploit it fully – the problem exists and when we play the better teams, we will get exposed down the right with that setup of Hector/Campbell/Flamini. Hopefully now we will play Coquelin and it’s a moot point.
I guess Man City losing 4-1 twice doesn’t quite count? (and once at home losing 4-1). Aside from our Soton 4-0 loss, where did we lose 4-0 this season in the EPL? Note we thumped the current leaders 5-2 in their backyard and we beat the current favourites ManCity 2-1.
But in my mind, that’s history now.
Absolutely we can and should win our next 5 EPL games, then with some luck we still have a full and healthy squad – we should expose those Spuds for the pretenders they are.
Disappointed about the dropped points – YES….is it doom and gloom now – NOT A CHANCE.
flam should not appear again. right side will be campbell/coq/bellerin.
wenger’s out of his mind. he’s going to taint his legacy i’m sure of it ; and he’ll regret he didnt leave after he won FA in 2014.
We beat them 1-0 last year
Poor old Bournemouth ?
Boy, are they in for one massive backlash! ?
We gunner be whipping them 5 nil by Half-time.
Barcelona scored 7…. We will score 8 ?
How’s that for being positively delusional ? ?
Wish football were players as per your dram land. Keep underestimating other teams and we will fall even below.
Haha I think this must be the most shameless click-bait ever! Cech out..no need to panic? Right..how stupid of me to think the title meant Cech had picked up an injury..ofcos it just meant Cech was making announcements here and there playing team captain to everyone. My mistake Admin. Won’t happen again.
Haha I think this must be the most shameless click-bait ever! Cech out..no need to panic? Right..how stupid of me to think the title meant Cech had picked up an injury..ofcos it just meant Cech was making announcements here and there playing team captain to everyone. My mistake Admin. Won’t happen again..