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Petr Cech: It's easy to say Arsenal lack leaders but it's not that simple

Arsenal FC via Getty Images
Arsenal FC via Getty Images

Petr Cech has rejected claims that Arsenal have lacked leadership during their recent struggles.

The accusation that Arsenal are lacking in personality has dogged Arsene Wenger for much of the last decade, in which they have failed to put together a league-winning season, and reared itself once more as the Gunners laboured through the worst run of form of their manager’s reign over recent weeks.

Defeats at Liverpool, West Brom and Crystal Palace were roundly criticised but it was the 5-1 loss in Munich to Bayern that seemed to make clear Arsenal’s surfeit of leaders, with an injury to captain Laurent Koscielny prompting a remarkable collapse from the visitors, who were drawing when they lost their French centre-back.

However Cech believes that blaming Arsenal’s troubles on an absence of guidance is too simplistic.

“It’s easy to hide behind saying ‘we lack leaders and these guys have it and we don’t’,” Cech said. “You need to see what’s happening behind the scenes and how the team works, how we operate.

“Sometimes you have periods where you might have prepared well but the game starts to go completely wrong. We had a difficult period where the team was losing games it shouldn’t have and then you come to a situation where you play under pressure and need to find a way out.

“Sometimes you find a way out quickly, sometimes it takes longer and you suffer more damage. I think this season we’ve had a spell where we’ve put ourselves in a very difficult position.”

Arsenal now hope that Sunday’s 2-1 win over Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final can revive their stuttering season, with the manner of their revival after Sergio Aguero’s opener offering cause for optimism around the Emirates.

It was not the first time this season Arsenal had found a way out of a tight situation – indeed Wenger’s men seemed to be making a habit of it during the autumn and winter months. They will need to display similar resilience in the closing weeks of a Premier League campaign where their margin of error is all but non-existent.

“We had that at the start of the season where we overcame a lot of deficits,” Cech added. “Sometimes you find the way to answer the difficulties you faced, sometimes you try and you don’t.

“Today the most important was the discipline and effort of the team. Everybody stuck to the plan. I thought that the individual performances were brilliant.

“It was a very difficult game against a very difficult opponent. At times they’ve been brilliant, even in this game. It was very difficult but we managed to find the answers.”