by Lewis Ambrose

Arsenal beat Everton 3-1 to win the Barclays Asia Trophy on Saturday afternoon, with Petr Čech playing in goal for Arsenal for the first time.

In front of him was Arsenal centre-half Laurent Koscielny, and the Frenchman is looking forward to lining up with Čech in goal more often. Speaking ahead of Saturday’s game Koscielny praised the experienced goalkeeper, who he has tipped to bring an added calmness to the Arsenal side.

“Petr has played 11 years in England, and made more than 300 appearances in the Premier League, and has won a lot of trophies,” said Koscielny.

“He is professional, you felt that in his first training session. He talks a lot, and his position that’s very important.

“He will do well with us and when you have a good keeper like this behind you, you are more serene.”

That amount of experience will only serve Arsenal well, and we can only hope the defence really is more ‘serene’ with the Czech international between the posts. If Arsenal are as comfortable as they were against Everton on Saturday there is little doubt Čech’s influence will be hailed by everyone, but he isn’t the only one who deserves credit.

“We have a defence that plays high on the pitch so we need a team who all does the defensive job, and I think we did well on that last year, and we will do it again this season,” Koscielny declared.

“If we play with this pressure all the season we can win a lot of games and not concede too many.”

With Čech in goal I would argue that the Gunners would actually be best served in a low block rather than a high line, but that is a debate for another time.

It is fantastic to hear so many of our players claim that Čech is making a difference. Long may it continue.