Petr Cech says that Chelsea’s 3-1 win over Man City yesterday meant Arsenal had to respond to keep in touch with the league leaders.
The Arsenal stopper’s former club showed their title credentials by winning at the City of Manchester stadium, and it meant the Gunners had to show what they were made of against West Ham last night.
The response was first class, a 5-1 win in which Alexis Sanchez stole the show with a hat-trick, and Cech was pleased with the way we dealt with the pressure.
“It became a kind of must win game for us when Chelsea won and obviously the gap opened to six points,” he said.
“We knew what we had to do and we did it in a very professional way, so we are happy.
“We a lot of opportunities in the first half but it wouldn’t go in. In the second half at 1-0 the keeper made some fantastic saves and you think it could still be a dangerous scoreline.
“I know a lot of people would have been a bit anxious, but we showed the maturity not to panic and we kept going. We thoroughly deserved the goals for our performance.”
—
How did the players rate? Leave your own votes on our player rating system.
Team of men, second in the table, scored 5 away against a team that recently in the PL drew with United away, lost to Sp*rs away by one goal.
Let’s relax and enjoy it for once (if you want to slag Walcott, Ramsey or whoever do it elsewhere).
Another positive: the Ox looked much improved yesterday, adding better passing and some end product to his physical dynamism!
I think the left hand side cutting in really suits him!
And Liverpool blowing a 3-1 lead versus Bournemouth and Jack to lose 4-3, keeping us second!
Also, thanks to the handbags at the end of the City Chelski game Aguero and Fernandinho will still be suspended when we go to play them.
I still think we should give Lucas a chance to play on the left wing with Alexis up top. He has pace, creavititvity, he tracks back to defend and has a great cross!
The ONE game I miss and it’s all moonshine and roses. Fucksake.
Polite request, could you miss a few more?
What a thrilling second half! COYG!
Done his bit Petr Cech. Nice save when lanzini was through.
I swear that game could have ended 10-1 in favor of Arsenal. Creation all over the place. Loved it
Can’t complain we blew them away at about 80% intensity. Yes, we could have scored more but they could have as well! November is over!!!
Great goals but Chamberlain still lacks sharpness
Westham will beg to differ
Loved Petr on the Sky coverage coming up to Alexis at he end and telling him (in Spanish) what a what a top guy he was . A great bloke to have in the team.
Objectively speaking I think De Gea is currently the best keeper in the premiership at the moment but I would not want to swap Cech for anyone. As you say such a top player and great influence to to have in the side.
Great weekend. We’re behind chelsea’s tails. Making up the GD. City in melt down without Aguero drop. Liverpool do what we did with them first match…only they had it in their minds (and the media’s) that they were as good as they think they were where we knew we were without several of our best assets back then. Spurs, well after surrendering their ‘unbeaten’ record, they hammer the Swans by 5 goals and are still 4 points off and in 5th spot. We need to keep pushing. Everton look tough against United today and we will need to play much… Read more »
Yeah they “moved” to a new stadium and at very little cost .. we built ours from scratch. West Ham’s stadium move ideally shouldn’t have created these many problems
Man Utd … Jose Mourinho LOL. Day off. Large spliff, Watching Arsenal highlights. I love Charlie George and Alexis. Is this the team we have been waiting for? I hope so.