Heroic Cech Saves Misfiring Gunners
- Jan 3, 2016
- 2 min read
Some outstanding saves from veteran goalkeeper Petr Cech saved Arsenal from certain defeat, salvaging a 1-0 win against Newcastle last night.
Adding to his Premier League record 171 clean sheets, Cech again proved why he was an invaluable signing for Arsene Wenger last year. Just this week he revealed that he communicates to his defensive backline in their preferred languages; Spanish to both Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal. French to Laurent Koscielny and English to Per Mertesacker.
While Newcastle surely deserved to win the game, or at least come out with a draw, it was Arsenal who secured the top spot on the ladder with a scrappy goal to the aforementioned Koscielny in the 72nd minute.
The Gunners started the game strong yet failed to take advantage of their dominant 80% possession in the opening 15 minutes.
A number of chances fell to Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott, who had their shots blocked by a gallant Fabricio Collocini.
Newcastle started to show signs of life on the counter attack as Arsenal continued to squander multiple shots on goal, with Aleksandar Mitrovic coming closest to breaking the deadlock with an overhead kick.
The two teams entered the break still scoreless but Arsenal seemed to become somewhat complacent in the final 15 minutes of the first half; content with the chances instead of the scoreline.
The second half continued in the same way the first half finished, with Newcastle still failing to find the net and Arsenal happy to sit back and defend.
Ultimately it was a tap-in goal to Koscielny to finally put Arsenal up 1-0 and Aaron Ramsey should've made it 2-0 in the final minutes but blasted his shot wide of the goal after some creative build up play.
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