Petr Cech faced the media after Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday. You can read a full transcript of his interview below:
on playing at Stamford Bridge for Arsenal…
It was new for me but I was focused on the game and I had a great reception for the fans. That was amazing and I would like to thank them for that. You come here to play football, you want to win a football match, and we didn’t win. That’s disappointing.
on Gabriel’s red card…
We played really well in the first half and that sending off changed the situation on the pitch. It’s up to the referee and his officials to make decisions. I can’t comment on it because I didn’t see the incident or what happened after. The important thing is that they had the one-man advantage for the second half and they took advantage of that.
on what positives Arsenal can take…
I would say that a positive thing was that we made it difficult for them when we went down to 10, and then down to nine. We had a few half chances, so we didn’t make it easy for them in the last 15 minutes when we started to push a little bit more. The second red card then came and that was what they needed.
on defeat…
I came back and hoped that I could get a result for my new team. We prepared for the game but couldn’t win. My individual highlight will be the reception I got from the fans which was amazing. I would like to thank everybody but obviously I would have liked to win the game. We go home with no points so that’s the disappointing part.
on the incident involving Gabriel and Costa…
After the first moment where the referee gave a yellow card to Gabriel and Diego Costa, I stopped following what was going on. I was putting the ball in place and was ready to kick-off again. Obviously then I saw the red card, so it’s hard to comment because I didn’t see it. This made a big difference in the game, going into half-time at 0-0 and we were playing well in the first half. I thought that we were right in the game and we had a chance to win the game, but going into the second half with only 10 men and finishing with nine men made it hard to win the game.
on the mood in the dressing room…
You have to pick yourselves up and continue. That’s the only thing you can do because you don’t win or lose the league after five games. You need to carry on until the last minute of the campaign. Obviously we need to keep going.
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