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Cech - My own goal and our response

Petr Cech speaks to Shane Long after the win against Southampton

Petr Cech spoke to the media after a dramatic victory at Emirates Stadium against Southampton after Santi Cazorla's late penalty. 

The goalkeeper was unable to stop Dusan Tadic's free-kick, but made some important saves in the second half. Click the above video to see what he said. 

on the Southampton goal…
It was a good free-kick. I got a touch and I was so pleased that I saw the ball going on the bar, but in the end it turned out to be an own goal. Which obviously, in that moment of the game, was against the run of play and we didn’t need this unlucky moment. But I think our reaction was very good, we got a goal back in the first half, we tried to push for the winning goal. It came in the last minute but I think we were aggressive and we were searching for it so in the end we probably deserved a little bit of luck back.

on deciding where to stand on a free-kick…
The wall is there to protect half of the goal, so the position of the free-kick was literally in the middle where Van Dijk could easily hit my side very hard. Then you need to protect this side and the wall takes the other side. Obviously, if you have the free-kick taken very well - which it was - then you need to make sure that you are ready to go. I was ready to go but unfortunately it didn’t turn out to be a good save but an own goal.

on Koscielny’s goal…
It was a great goal. We put them under pressure with that corner. The whole situation was that we were there, we were aggressive in the right place at the right time. It was the best skill to choose and it was a great goal. I think it is a goal of the season contender and it was his birthday today as well so it’s probably the best day for him.

on producing the right level of performances…
I think we are not 100 per cent yet. Our game is not as fluent as it could be and it should be. But I think we are getting the results that we need and this is the most important sometimes when you are playing and you know not everything is happening the way you want, that you find a way to win games. Obviously we did so, so we are happy with the three points and we go game by game and try to improve every day.

on the penalty…
For the penalty, what would it be like for me to comment? Because there were so many people, I couldn’t see anything and I’m, you know, 105 yards away. So I didn’t see the incident. Second thing, Santi was really strong because it was an injury to Laurent so he had to wait for quite a long time and he was very composed. The great players do great things and he did it today.

 

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