Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has expressed the opinion that his club might have forgotten what it takes to win titles.
The Gunners last lifted the trophy in the 2003-04 season and failed to qualify for the Champions League in the last two campaigns, with Arsene Wenger’s long reign ending in May. Cech has four Premier League titles, all from his time at Chelsea before he moved across London to join Arsenal in 2015. Cech, who is keeping new goalkeeper Bernd Leno out of the team, called for Unai Emery’s men to recapture the club’s former glories by grinding out results.
“For any club who wins titles in the recent years, you have a team with the knowhow how to finish it off and you can see it in any sport,” Cech said. I take Tiger Woods, five years since he won a major tournament and the longer it goes, the harder it becomes. This club hasn’t won the league for over 10 years so obviously you need to get back into knowing how to do it. We started with the new manager from scratch basically and we try to get this mentality of winning every game, progressing every game, working every day and hopefully we can build this up and win the title sooner rather than later. That will make the big difference.”
“What we lacked in the past – I would say the ‘Arsenal way’ was more important than getting the points sometimes and this is not how you win the league. Sometimes you need to make sure you win an ugly game, when you are not playing completely well but you just dig deep, close the back door and win 1-0 no matter how. I think this is what we lacked over the last three years, since I arrived.”
After defeats to Manchester City and Chelsea in their first two games under Emery, Arsenal have bounced back with a much-improved run of results.