Arsenal: Quick hook for Petr Cech absolutely necessary

Arsenal had far too many mishaps against Manchester City, and Petr Cech was the chief offender. In the name of progress, it’s crucial to yank him.

Arsenal‘s performance against Manchester City was technically an improvement over being stomped by them twice last year, but in the end, the same mistakes haunted the club as last year. Especially in precarious situations.

Namely Petr Cech, whose distribution was terrible. So terrible that he almost passed a ball into his own net. His long passes were futile and ended up coming right back at him and it was just not a good situation.

I’m not going to say I told you so beforehand. Not because I have too much civility for that, but because I wasn’t entirely right. I said that Petr Cech was the wrong choice because he was the safe bet. He wasn’t the safe bet. He was far from safe.

Yes, he made a collection of great saves. Truly great saves. It may have gotten worse without him. But if you go back and look at the saves and counterbalance them with the mistakes, I’d say it still comes out even.

And when it comes to a keeper, I’d rather someone be consistent than a huge hit and miss. Especially someone like Cech.

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If we wanted an enigmatic presence back there, who could do anything, we might as well have gone with the much-younger Bernd Leno, right? Cech had a lot of good saves, but Leno is also a master shot-stopper. That’s his primary strength.

Leno is also good with his feet. He’s part of that new-age keeper that knows how to play the ball out from the back and, well, not give the fans nervous conniptions every time he’s called on to compete a pass.

Leno’s drawback is decision making and commanding his box, but Cech didn’t do much of that either.

Which is why there needs to be a quick-hook for Cech. Not because he’s completely lost the job, but because there have to be consequences. This is a season-long battle that should merit quick-hooks on both sides. Whenever the other comes up inadequate, he’s replaced.

We signed Leno for a reason – because we desperately needed to restore confidence at the back. Cech did not inspire much of that against City, even in spite of his great saves.