CECH BLASTS BAYER CHEEK
PETR CECH hit back at Bayer Leverkusen for mocking his awful attempt at a first-time pass against Manchester City.
A tweet from Bayer’s official account read: “We might know a guy…” in reply to a post showing footage of Cech’s blunder.
Keeper Bernd Leno moved from the German club in the summer but he was not picked ahead of Cech for the first game.
Leverkusen added: “In case you all were wondering how to play out of the back.”
The jibe clearly got to the keeper, who said: “At Arsenal, we share important values which make us a big club not only on the football side.
“Fair competition, professionalism and sportsmanship are the biggest ones you teach young footballers and it’s sad to see when other clubs don’t share the same values.”
Leverkusen tried to defuse the situation, posting: “Hi Petr. It seems our joke about wanting to see Leno, our former player, in action has been taken a bit more harshly/ personally than intended. It was only a bit of banter.”
Cech has pleaded for patience while his Arsenal team-mates adjust to the Unai Emery era. The new boss wants Arsenal to play out from the back but fans turned on a jittery Cech, who almost scored that comical own goal and looked nervy with the ball at his feet.
The veteran said: “When you start building a new team with a new manager and a completely new way, it may take time. We have been doing really well and we need to adjust a few things, but I think we are in a good way.”
Emery has demanded his players are not afraid to use the keeper to ensure they retain the ball. It did not appear to come naturally as City’s high-energy pressing game put the hosts under pressure. Cech said: “If you want to dominate the game through possession, you need to use every player. You can see at this level that one v one is difficult to play, so you need to use the goalkeeper as a spare man every time you can. That is the role of the goalkeeper.
“If you play for a team who is happy to play a long ball and a completely different way, then the keeper plays a different way. But for what we want to do I think it is going to be important. “We try and build the team and create our own way of playing. We have been doing that for five weeks, City have been doing that for three years now. They have a big advantage.
“The biggest difference in our game was that in the final third we just needed to find the final killer pass. We forced them into a few mistakes in possession but we didn’t finish our opportunities. “Comparing how we played against them last season, we gave them a game.”