Arsenal succumbed to their 2nd defeat in a week when they traveled to Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon. The Arsenal team were very poor collectively, but one of the players that have been heavily criticised has been Petr Cech.
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Playing against his former club, Cech was a calamity and made several errors during the game, the most noticeable and most damaging one being his pass straight to a Cesc Fabregas, who scored and thus ended any chance of an Arsenal revival.
And these errors were not the first we have seen him make. Although often exempt from criticism from the media due to his glittering career to date, Cech has endured a pretty terrible season to date. This has led to many fans questioning his place in the team, especially with his deputy, David Ospina, performing so well in the cup competitions.
Cech is close to reaching the end of his career and many feel that now would be a suitable time to call it a day.
Here’s some of the reaction to his performance from Twitter.
Ospina had a record win % for Arsenal to end the season the first one he was with us. Time to play him in the PL. Cech hasn't done enough.
— NebraskanGooner (@nebraskangooner) February 6, 2017
Iv'e no problem with Cech..still think he's a fantastic keeper but does anyone think we should give Ospina some run of games in the BPL?
— 🔴⚪️ (@AFCLGS) February 6, 2017
Iv'e no problem with Cech..still think he's a fantastic keeper but does anyone think we should give Ospina some run of games in the BPL?
— 🔴⚪️ (@AFCLGS) February 6, 2017
Let's not even talk about Cech. Only reason I'm looking forward to the Champions League is because Ospina plays.
— I'llGoNearPost (@ilGoNearPost) February 4, 2017
https://twitter.com/Poundie82/status/827884006339403776
Personally I would agree with most of the criticism. He hasn’t been good for us this year at all, and whilst pundits predicted he would win us 10 points a season, it may well end of that he will lose us that amount. I don’t think that based on his form over his time at Arsenal, he can still be considered world class. His reactions have slowed to a quite worrying rate, so much so that I believe it is costing the club points. He’s also terrible at saving penalties, he hasn’t saved one during his time at Arsenal (and he’s faced a lot).
Perhaps his main issue though is his struggle to defend shots at his near post. This is a weakness to Cech’s game that has been spotted by the Arsenal fans, and it seems some strikers are well aware of it too. There’s too many areas of weakness creeping into his game and it’s certainly something that needs addressing at Arsenal in the summer.