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Arsenal ace speaks out after suffering fresh injury blow

By on March 5, 2016

Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has spoken out for the first time since suffering a calf injury which is going to keep him on the sidelines for up to a month.

Cech picked up the injury during the closing stages of our loss against Swansea City on Wednesday night and Arsene Wenger confirmed at his press conference yesterday that our number one will now be out for 3-4 weeks.

Many assumed Cech had suffered the problem as he ran back having been up for a last minute corner, however, the 33-year-old has now spoken out to clarify things.

Speaking ahead of today’s huge North London Derby, Cech is quoted by the Express as saying that he actually suffered the injury 10 minutes before the end of the game and knew about the issue when he decided to go up for the last minute corner.

Cech knew he would struggle to sprint back to his own goal if the corner broke down, but thought it was worth the risk to try and salvage a point with our last chance of the game. Unfortunately, Cech did try to run back when the corner was cleared and aggravated the existing injury.

Cech said:

“For a lot of people it looks more interesting to say that I got injured running back from the corner but the reality is I had already injured a calf during the game in the last 10 minutes,”

“Obviously running to the corner I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to run back [due to the injury] – or at least not fast.

“But it was the last minute and I thought we at least have the chance to get a point and it’s not necessary that you go and score – you can create confusion, there is an odd number [of players], anything can happen, so this why I went.

“Obviously the corner came too far to the back post and the counter attack was coming. The referee was communicating over the radio and I could still hear he was saying there was like five, 10 seconds remaining and they will probably have a chance to score.

“I started running back although I knew that I probably can’t. But I kind of tried, but you can see I was not running fast at all and obviously I reached a point in that run where I could not run any more and stopped. But I had already done [the injury] before [the corner] and so I knew I wouldn’t be able to run back.

“It was kind of a bitter end of the game for me because we wanted to get three points to close the gap and in the end we lost and I got injured as well.”

So once again a player has been allowed to play-on while carrying an injury, made the problem worse and is now out for longer than needed. Had Cech gone off, or been instructed not to risk going up for the corner, it’s safe to assume he wouldn’t be facing as long as four weeks out.

Perhaps Cech didn’t inform the coaching or medical staff of his injury, in which case this on all on him and you’d expect better from a man of his experience as it certainly wasn’t worth making the injury worse by going up for the corner.

Let’s hope Ospina can take his chance during Cech’s absence, starting at White Hart Lane today…