Arsenal: Well, Bernd Leno can’t say much of anything now

Arsenal fans are still clamoring for Bernd Leno, and Leno has started clamoring too, but what can be said now, after a masterclass by Petr Cech?

Arsenal looked like they were about ready to soil the bed against Everton. After dominating the Toffees in every match in recent memory, the Gunners came out of the boxes slow, sloppy and shambolic.

Time and again they gave the visitors chance upon chance to put home easy goals against Petr Cech and time and again Cech was absolutely brilliant. In the first ten minutes alone, he must have saved the scoreless scoreline three times.

And it only got better from there. Cech was confident and controlling throughout the game, making the easy saves look as easy as they should have been and making the more difficult ones look easy. He claimed crosses with composure and, perhaps best of all, with the ball at his feet, he never crapped his pants.

He was overly cautious at times, but I’d much rather overly cautious than loose and swashbuckling. This was the Cech that won so much for Chelsea, not the Cech that made seven mistakes in just one year last year.

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All of this comes just after Bernd Leno‘s first start with the club against FC Vorskla. Leno wasn’t able to keep the clean sheet, but it wasn’t at any fault of his. He did his job well and was understandably frustrated by the ending scoreline.

After the match, Leno spoke up about wanting more at the club and fans, who know how nervy Cech can make things, were ready to see the swap happen against Everton, but unsurprisingly, Emery stuck with the veteran. Consider it like Cech’s chance to rebuttal.

Again, he was simply superb, so much so that I don’t see what Leno can even say after a performance like that. Yes, Leno deserves to start, but if that was Cech’s reaction to being called out, then he wins. He was so good that even amid the mass of mistakes, the clean sheet was rarely ever in doubt.

Internal competition works again, as we can clearly see. Leno fired a shot and Cech fired one right back. This is how things are supposed to work.

Now we just need to keep stringing this along without ticking Leno off too much. He will be getting consistent game time now, so hopefully that will be enough to satiate him.