Olivier Giroud has dedicated Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over Red Star Belgrade to Petr Cech after the goalkeeper put in a superb performance against the Serbian side.

Cech had an excellent game in the Europa League on Thursday night and Giroud hailed the 35-year-old’s performance post-match.

“We owe him maybe the win today because he has been amazing two or three times,” the striker said. “We know he has this quality and he was a great goalkeeper tonight.”

Cech stood in for David Ospina who’s currently recovering from a grade one groin injury.

The Colombian usually gets the nod during League Cup and Europa League games but this time we had our no.1 shot-stopper between the sticks and thank goodness we did.

https://twitter.com/PetrCech/status/921120935108804608

Cech pulled off three saves and made two claims against Red Star. And these weren’t just run-of-the-mill saves either. They were brilliant. And if Ospina was in goal, with all due respect, I fear Arsenal could have been a couple of goals down by half time.

Fortunately, Cech was there and the former Chelsea man managed to keep a clean sheet so that when Olivier Giroud eventually found the back of the net with his fantastic goal in the 85th minute, Arsenal could claim all three points.

While Cech has definitely seen better days, it’s games like that one which prove he’s still a decent goalkeeper. At the very least, better than Ospina. Not that that means much.