Cech sifted through the wreckage of the Bayern defeat in the search for positives and he came up with a couple, namely Arsenal’s decent opening 10 minutes and how they kept fighting in the second half. No one could have expected it to go this badly.
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The result leaves the Gunners third in Group F, six points behind Bayern and Olympiacos with just two games to play.
Arsenal needs to win both of their remaining matches with nice goal margins and Olympiackos lose theirs for the English team to scale through. “He’s very strong in the important games”.
That was not to be the case. The London club were dismantled by the German champions at the Allianz Areana on 4 November, with goals from Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Mueller, David Alaba and Arjen Robben. But it was easier after the first goal.
Given their form in the tournament so far, the chances of Arsenal reaching the last 16 for the 16th consecutive season seem remote.
Then, assuming Bayern’s win over Olympiacos, comes the crunch. The amusing thing is that when we went forward we looked like we were going to create chances and we did create chances but with a defensive performance like that we are going nowhere. “We had many players who performed below-par tonight”.
Bayern can do Arsenal a huge favour by beating Olympiakos in two weeks’ time and Guardiola said his side will be going all out to defeat the Greeks as they target finishing first.
Petr Cech has backed Arsenal to recover from their worst-ever European defeat and qualify for the Champions League knock-out stages. That’s why we do not concede many goals but score a lot.
Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud reacts after his team allow the fourth goal against Bayern Munich on Wednesday in their Champions League loss. Lets hope Bayern beat Olympiacos and we win at home against Zagreb [in the next round of games] – at least we’ll have a chance in the last game.
Coach Pep Guardiola brought on Robben early in the second half and the Dutchman, a crowd favourite, delivered instantly, killing off the game 37 seconds later with his first touch from an Alaba cutback.
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Centre-back Gabriel, playing instead of Laurent Koscielny after the French defender injured a hip, struggled to cope with Bayern’s attackers, who were ably supported by a fast-paced midfield.
