Petr Cech stuck on 199 clean sheets

Longtime Arsenal fans are probably familiar with the ”1-0 to the Arsenal” chant. Back in the days when the Gunners’ defense was almost impenetrable, this tune would ring out on a regular basis once Arsenal took the lead. Sadly these days, the chant should be changed to “1-0 to the other team”. It even scans!

There are many players at Arsenal guilty of underperforming this season. Surprisingly, goalkeeper Petr Cech is one of the culprits.

On December 16th of last year, Arsenal defeated Newcastle at the Emirates by a 1-0 scoreline. The clean sheet kept that day by Cech was the 199th of his Premier League career. Of course this was a great accomplishment.

Two and half months later, however, Cech is still searching for his 200th clean sheet. In case you need a refresher, Arsenal’s EPL results since the shutout versus Newcastle include:

• 3-3 draw home to Liverpool
• 2-3 victory at Crystal Palace
• 1-1 draw at West Brom (to be fair this should have been Cech’s 200th clean sheet but for a phantom penalty awarded in the 89th minute. Of course West Brom scored the penalty shot. The fact that Cech never saves a penalty is another story)
• 2-2 draw home to Chelsea
• 2-1 loss at Bournemouth
• 4-1 victory home to Crystal Palace
• 3-1 loss at Swansea
• 5-1 victory home to Everton
• 1-0 loss at Tottenham
• 0-3 loss at home to Manchester City

This makes for some pretty ugly reading. Of course Cech is not to blame for all of these goals, but the once reliable keeper is a shell of his old self. He has now gone ten league matches without recording a shutout.

The former Chelsea stopper will go down in Premier League history as one of the best at his position. Unfortunately, it’s pretty obvious that his glory years are behind him.

The once revered Cech has become an ongoing joke among Arsenal fans:

Arsenal and Cech have ten league matches remaining this season. One would expect the keeper to record a clean sheet before the end of the campaign. The sad reality, however, is that the question now is if Cech will record another shutout rather than when.