'I had 166 passes and people only picked up on two' - Arsenal's Petr Cech defends his ball-playing skills

Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech today defended his ability to play out from the back by saying he made 166 passes in the club’s first four games of the season but “everybody picked up on two”.

A key component of head coach Unai Emery’s style is to entrust his keeper and defenders with possession to begin building attacks from deep.

The instruction has triggered several panicked moments in the Arsenal defence as they attempt to implement Emery’s tactic, several of which came at Cardiff prior to the international break.

In the most alarming incident during the match, Cech played the ball straight to Harry Arter on the edge of the box but the midfielder fired wastefully over with the score still at 0-0.

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The Gunners went on to win the game 3-2 but, as in their three previous Premier League outings, Cech attracted criticism for appearing to be uncomfortable with the ball at his feet; he almost scored an own-goal against Manchester City by attempting to pass the ball across the penalty area only to drag it inches wide of his right-hand post.

But ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Newcastle, Cech said: “I had 166 passes in the first four games which is a huge amount and everybody picked up on only two.

“It’s obviously not a great thing to do when you pass the ball in a dangerous area, like I did at Cardiff when I gave it to Harry Arter but it’s part of the game that you can always make a mistake.”

The possession-based approach used by Emery is ultimately attempting to emulate the success of two of its finest exponents: Pep Guardiola’s City side and the best Barcelona teams of the last 10 years.

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Cech added: “If you look at the evolution of Barcelona and Man City, it didn’t happen overnight. As they got more familiar with that [style], the results came.

“We’re now in that process of getting to know what advantage it gives us.”