When Petr Čech pulled up on Wednesday night, everyone had the same thought: not David Ospina against Tottenham.

However, the Colombian shut plenty of critics up (for the time being) with a solid display in Saturday’s north London derby. Despite conceding twice he proved his worth as a shot-stopper once again, even if he did parry a couple of efforts a little needlessly.

In fact, with nine saves to his name it was the best shot stopping effort from any Arsenal goalkeeper in a Premier League match for quite some time.

 

Cheers, Dave! The worry is that a few of those efforts were knocked just ahead of him before being collected or cleared by him or one of his defenders.

Though many of the saves were standard for a goalkeeper at that level, two stops, in particular, managed to prevent what looked like certain goals. Erik Lamela’s first half effort from a fierce Kyle Walker cross was pushed away brilliantly before a second half save prevented the ball from crossing the line with the finest of margins.

Teetering on the edge of not so great – the goalkeeper would’ve been widely criticised for standing behind the line had that effort gone in – and very good, he did keep us in the game and received high praise from Mauricio Pochettino as a result.. With Čech facing up to a month out, let’s hope there’s more to come from Ospina.