Cech blasts ‘disrespectful’ claims about Sanchez

Petr Cech has leapt to the defence of Alexis Sanchez and insists that any claims that the forward was laughing at Arsenal’s plight during their 5-1 home thrashing to Bayern Munich are “disrespectful”.

Sanchez came in for criticism when he appeared to be chuckling away while sitting on the bench having been taken off during Arsenal’s record defeat at The Emirates.

The Gunners crashed out 10-2 on aggregate to the German giants, while they have also slipped off the pace in the race to finish in the top four in the Premier League.

Sanchez was on target as the Gunners returned to winning ways by putting Lincoln City to the sword in Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final clash, but the week before he had been dropped for the game at Liverpool amid speculation he had been involved in a training ground bust-up.

Arsene Wenger refuted those reports but, after taking the Chile forward off during the Champions League humiliation, Sanchez was photographed sat laughing with Cech.

But the experienced stopper explained the situation and said Sanchez had been just as low as his colleagues following the humbling.

“It is sad and he was as sad as I have seen him,” the former Chelsea man said.

“Unfortunately when you say the sentence, ‘had we scored the second goal everything could look different’ and then you do ‘ooph’ (exhale) you know, but in the end the reality is you are 5-1 down and somebody twists it and says you are laughing on the bench.

“I found it very disrespectful to the player. But obviously you can take the picture and you can interpret it the way you want unfortunately.

“But we the players, we know exactly what he said and we know how he was hurting and he was as disappointed as anybody else. It is unfortunate and disappointing.”