Arsenal lost 5-1 on Wednesday at the Allianz Arena to Bayern Munich in a match which pretty much every Arsenal player was at fault for. It was an unfortunate jolt in a stretch of good form, but Arsenal ‘keeper Petr Cech seems optimistic and wants his team to feel the same way.
You [need to] win two games and we need to make sure that the head to head against Olympiacos is in our favour.
Then you can go through. Everything is possible. We have two games to play, we have to regroup and continue fighting until the last minute.
The team know it is unlikely that they will go through to the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League, but it is possible if the results in upcoming fixtures go their way. Cech is experienced enough to know that games like these happen, and the crucial part of responding to a match like this one is bouncing back in the following one.
Every game comes thick and fast. You need to make sure that you recover and move on to the next one. It was not a day we wanted.
The veteran goalkeeper had more to say about the match and the process of recovering from such a demoralising result.
We need to win the last two games and make sure that we have a better head to head against Olympiacos. In terms of the league, win or lose [in Europe], you need to make sure that you’re ready for the next game.
He later went on to talk about how the goals from Bayern went in so frequently and at such a high tally.
Obviously the first two goals decided the game because they gave them confidence. When we thought that we had the equaliser, it was not given.
A few minutes later, we had an unlucky deflection and that was probably where the game changed. After that moment, they controlled the first half.
It’s tough to take but in a way you have to accept that the team you were playing against was superior to us today in everything they did, especially in the first half. That’s why the score in the first half was the way it was.
The Czech Republic goalkeeper did take out some positives from the destructive match, as it was not all bad for the whole 90 minutes.
I think we improved a lot in the second half. We gave them more things to think about and we created some chances. If you look at the two games we played against them, today we had more chances than in the first game but they were much more efficient.
There are some positives from the second half but we need to do better defensively and be more aggressive because today we allowed them too much time on the ball.
Arsenal are in a huge hole in terms of qualification possibilities, but it could be a blessing in disguise for their strength in the Premier League, so they are fresher and will have fewer midweek matches.
