Chelsea are not Arsenal’s bogey team, claims Cech
LONDON: Arsenal are over their Chelsea hoodoo and know they can beat their London rivals, Petr Cech has claimed ahead of the Gunners’ trip to Stamford Bridge tomorrow.
Arsene Wenger’s side, who sit in the bottom half of the Premier League table after four matches, have won only one of the last 11 league meetings with Chelsea.
They have lost 2-1, 6-0, 2-0, 2-0 and 3-1 in their last five league games Stamford Bridge — their joint-worst sequence of results on the road against one team (the other being five losses at Old Trafford between 2009 and 2013).
But they beat Antonio Conte’s side in last season’s FA Cup final before overcoming them again in the Community Shield in August. And Cech has called on his teammates to build on those victories when they travel to his former club this weekend.
“We have to draw a line under what happened and move forward,” he told Sky Sports.
“We played Chelsea in the Community Shield and in the FA Cup final last season, so we know we can beat them. They know they lost two games against us that they were not happy to lose, so this is something we have to use to our advantage.”
Arsenal beat Cologne in the Europa League on Thursday to record their second consecutive victory. They endured a difficult opening few weeks to the season, which culminated in a 4-0 battering at the hands of Liverpool on Aug 27.
The defeat prompted stern criticism from pundits and former Gunners. And Cech admitted the defeat was ‘unacceptable’ before urging his side to put it right when they meet another top-six rival this weekend.
“Liverpool was a big slap in the face, it wasn’t acceptable for a club the size of Arsenal and the team that we are,” he said.
“If we want to be close to the top of the table after two defeats then we have to win the big games and this is the first opportunity for us to do so.”
Trouble is, Chelsea come into tomorrow's match buoyed by four consecutive wins. They have also scored in 23 successive league games at the Stamford Bridge and over half of these have seen them score three or more times.
It leaves the Gunners fighting both form and history when they head there tomorrow.
And when it comes to taking on their rivals directly, the last time Arsenal won away to one of last season's top six was their 2-0 win at Man City in January 2015. They’ve lost eight and drawn five since then. Daily Mail