Petr Cech says Danny Welbeck’s last-gasp winner against Leicester has changed the dynamic of the title race.
The England international’s 95th-minute header, scored 13 minutes after coming off the bench in his first game since April, secured three vital points for the Gunners that closes the gap on Claudio Ranieri’s table-topping side to two points.
Revealing that he never stopped believing that Arsenal would find a decisive second goal Cech couldn’t help but savour a ‘sweet’ moment for Welbeck.
“I thought if Leicester got a point, their belief would be bigger,” the 33-year-old told Arsenal.com.
“We closed the gap and we won a very important game and we depended on these sort of things some time ago and we are very close.
“You have to wait for them to lose three or four games but now it is a very small gap. Everybody has their difficult games to play.
He continued: “I believed that we were going to score. Kasper made an unbelievable save against Giroud and I thought it was going to go in.
“We had many half chances or chances where you think: ‘okay, one last thing and we might score.’
“It is a sweet moment for him because he has been working unbelievably hard to come back and he had a setback after the operation and he did the same thing all over again and today he got a sweet reward.”
On the buoyant mood in the dressing room he added: “It is a big difference if you wait for your opponent to lose points, so now we are only two points off the top, so it is a good spot to be in.
“We have plenty of difficult games to play but we had to win the game and we managed to do it. Playing against 10 men is very tricky and time was going by and we kept missing chances but [we] kept our cool and composure and found a winner.
“If you have a question of five or eight points then there is big difference. In the last few 48 minutes we turned an eight-point gap to a two-point one and that is a significant difference.
“They have been doing really [well], but I thought we did really well. We have been creating chances and apart from two or three counter-attacks we didn’t give them much, and we managed to find the win.”
Cech made some important saves yesterday. His experience really told in big games like that.
On another note, I cannot wait for Santi’s return. Our mercurial magician.
I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Santi always seems happy. But yea, it will be good to see him on the pitch again.
Um yes it does. Amazing fact: words can mean more than one thing!
struggling to see how that fits though… he seems pretty consistent in both health and happiness
strange to see a Naigerian(2nd language) challenging an English man(1st language) on how the grammer goes..
wait..TR7 ..are you British?
It’s actually spelt Nigerian.
…and ‘grammar’. Santi moves like Mercury, so I like the term here anyway!
And it’s not grammar issue, it’s semantic ::D
semantic, pedantic
Mercurial can have meanings like lively, quick and quick-witted. Which suit Santi pretty well.
You can tell Cech has bags of experience from the way he speaks.
“..In the last few 48 minutes we turned an eight-point gap to a two-point one..
What a boost he must be to have in the dressing room!
Great goalkeeping at both ends throughout the game. Great goal by Welbeck – this is why we love football. Buzzing. Have watched the goal and celebrations again and again! Reminds of the time Titi came back to score that goal against Leeds at the Emirates!
When describing the elation in the stadium, that’s the only thing I could compare it to too!
Titi is very annoying on Sky. He said Vardy’s dive was a definite penalty. Bullshit.
He has been annoying.
If he was commentating on this site I wouldn’t have known the difference between him and Fatgooner!
I actually don’t mind Fatgooner’s criticisms as much as I do – he is not criticising for the money!!
Yeah, as I commented last week, I’ve blocked out this corruption of a human in order to preserve the better times in my mind.
Was fantastic to have so many attacking options on the bench – Walcott, Welbeck, Flamini – really made a difference. Huge huge win – time will tell how huge, but let’s just enjoy it for now! Loved seeing the passion and desire our boys played with, boy did they want that win. Not sure I can take another 3 months of this though.
LOL Flamini
Justice was dealt to that cheating git Vardy when Čech humiliated him in the dying minutes of the game. He just made me like Leicester a hell of a lot less.
What a lovely picture. Sometimes you don’t need a caption, the image says it all.
THERE IS NO SPOON, PETR!!!!!
Cech the driving force behind the team.Brilliant saves in every game thats what it takes to be champions.go gunners go!!
I haven’t heard enough of how our defense did pretty darn well given the form LC have been in… just a handful of chances in the first half and up till their sending off… I wish we could play Sp*rs this week so we could just get them behind us sooner rather than later. Or…. maybe it would be better to let them sit above us for the time being and make their impending defeat that much sweeter?
I’ve just watched the replay now, and on the commentary we got here in oz you could clearly hear Andy Townsend saying YES as Leicester were awarded the penalty. Wtf??
I also read an article where he did the same thing for Marseille against us. Anyone know why he hates us, apart from the usual media rubbish?
On the game, Cech again kept us in it with the save from vardys header, brilliant. When you add in the experience he has of winning titles he is easily the best signing we’ve had for a long time
I wouldn’t lose any sleep about it mate!
Immense Win! Puts Arsenal right back in it.
Lack of experience saw Leicester get red-carded and give away a late free-kick. Something champions don’t do.
Whilst we got the great result, we must not forget had it stayed 11 vs 11, we may have lost.
If we had Messi and Ronaldo we would have definitely won.
Great result but the game at WHL is now all the more important. I worry if we play into their hands and let them attack us on the counter. Hope Wenger has been studying Spurs lately; Dier in the middle is absolutely crucial in breaking things up and they break pretty quickly with Dembele and the two fullbacks. I’d imagine Dier will again be manmarking Ozil as he did at the Emirates and throwing in the odd foul or two without being booked (I can see it already). We should absorb pressure and play Walcott upfront. A draw isn’t bad… Read more »
Cech embarassing that chav Vardy made my day. Leicester aren’t the nice guys of the league. We are. If i was a neutral I’d root for us. Fuck Leicester. They’ll fuck up when you least expect it and City can’t be arsed. Spurs worry me but they are perennial bottlers. Lets hope their bottle is more bottly than ours, cos we have previous in that department! I believe…. also, fuck Leicester again.
One of the great moments in the game. If you look closely, after leaving Vardy on his arse Cech took a moment or two pondering whether he should do a couple of stepovers before continuing play. But nah Cech is class all over. We really did rescue him from those cunts at the Bridge.
Best comment today mate!
It is hard to not to love you Petr.
My favorite human being in the world atm.
Cech really is a very special guy. Feels like we’ve had him for years in some ways. He’s just classy in every way.
Cech, mate. We should have won 5-2 like last time.
Let’s go to Manchester and bt United 6-0 with Welbeck hat-trick in first seven minutes. Alexis gets other 3 in second half blitz between 89th-95th min.
Unrelated to the article but what’s with everyone being against Arsenal. Costa chooses to fall over and perform a gold medal winning tumbling routine without receiving any contact while through on goal and gets a player sent off commentators and everyone else stsrts going on about how it was smart cunning genius play ect.
Ramsey gets dealt a leg breaker and adds an extra roll onto the end of his fall. Typical Arsenal always cheating.
What’s up with that?
Very happy to get the win for obvious reasons. Only got to see highlights on motd but I’m extra pleased since the media are now firmly embedded 15 feet up Leicester’s arse. They totally ignored the blatant Kante handball, said Vardy was perfectly entitled to cheat for the penalty, and Danny Murphy went on to defend Drinkwater’s assault on Ramsey. Apparently lunging in studs up, leg straight is a defensive mechanism.
And don’t get me started on Tim Sherwood. He was so bad he actually made my head hurt.
Can’t get down from the cloud my (our) Arsenal put me in. Anyway my good up there, hope it won’t rain.
Many commentators and ‘neutrals’ said we were incredibly lucky for the Leicester Sending off and we were playing the ref some what. We were slightly fortunate maybe but from the first half, we were slick and sharp with the passing and first to every ball. I don’t believe I even saw Coquelin that many times on the ball because the rest of the team were pressing so hungrily he almost felt redundant. The pressure was mainly on the foxes. They broke a couple of times first half when at full numbers and Cech had to be alert but we put… Read more »
To be honest, Theo was in a huge rut. He has been a liability recently. This very well taken goal may get him back on track. Joel Campbell and Chamberlain can play too, so he knows he has to perform. You are right, we did look better all game, even before the sending-off. Although the penalty was dodgy, I could see how Atkinson could call it. Nacho did try to toe poke and when Vardy’s touch took the ball too far away for him to retrieve, he decided to barrel ahead instead of towards the ball and tumble over Monreal… Read more »
I love the feeling of being in a legitimate title race. I was only 10 in 2004 and didnt really understand it as well. Now i spend all week going through the different outcomes of what can happen on Satuday and come the weekend I am buzzing! Long may it last
Now, i can’t wait to thrash spurs. I know they play like’ monsters’ of recent, but monsters can still be caged. COYG
That kante curl,that vardy header that cech had saved….were vital to our run. Expeerienced we need and experienced we got. The dribble he gave Vardy when we are on level….makes everyone chant that even though we share d spoilt…it was such a humiliation for vardy! Lets hope we get 3ups from our tougher fixtures!