Arsenal may have been knocked out of the FA Cup last night by Man United, but yet again the Gunners had more possession and more chances against our bogey team. Despite the criticism from Arsenal fans about the team selection, the tactics and usual dire defending, our big keeper Petr Cech is convinced that we didn’t play as badly as the comments suggested.
Cech told Arsenal.com after the game: “Well it’s a disappointment, because we played much better than the result shows. Obviously they created some counter-attacking situations and they punished us from that. You can see they are full of confidence, and that’s why when they arrive in the last third, they choose the right options to finish their actions. At 2-1 I thought we were back in the game. In the second half we had some chances early on but unfortunately we couldn’t get the equaliser. Then it was the same story – they had a counter-attack and a goal.
“They took their chances and we didn’t. That was the difference in the game. We are disappointed with that because we wanted to win again after a big win against Chelsea. It wasn’t to be.”
In fact the stats back up his assertions, as we had 63% possession in the 90 minutes, we managed 13 shots to United’s 5, and even had more on target at 5-4. The only difference was that they put three of those chances away while we didn’t!
Perhaps we are a bit to quick to jump to criticize our side, especially with our continuing defensive injury problems….
Sam P