Cech makes bold Arsenal title prediction; calls out City, United

Petr Cech believes Arsenal are very much alive in this season’s title race – and insists they can further close the gap on leaders Manchester City and Manchester United.

The Gunners were written off for even a top-four slot after a 4-0 defeat at Liverpool before the last international break – but since then have gone on a seven-match unbeaten run.

And Cech believes their growing confidence means it is far too soon to dismiss Arsenal as title challengers – especially with the club yet to meet either of the Premier League’s pacesetters.

Cech said: “We play them both, so those will be the games where we have the opportunity to close the gap. At this time, we need to make sure we win all our games and let’s see what will happen.

“On Saturday we were monitoring all the games and the result and every team ahead of us won their games, so we needed to make sure we continued our run and kept winning in order to keep the gap the way it is.

“Unfortunately we have to be chasing so we need to make sure we win our games and if the teams ahead of us drop some points we can close the gap or get ahead of them.”

Since the defeat at Anfield, Cech has kept four consecutive clean but he admitted there is always room to get even better.

“Obviously, you can always improve. We gave away too many balls during the last 60 minutes when we made some rash decisions,” he said of Sunday’s 2-0 win over Brighton.

“We created a lot of shots and a lot of chances but we were wasteful at times and made, for us, a lot of technical mistakes.

“As a team, the cohesion is there. The defensive attitude, the offensive work as well. This is the way to go forward.”