There was some confusion on Saturday afternoon as Petr Čech kept his third Premier League clean sheet for Arsenal.
The goalkeeper’s three clean sheets in a row take him onto 169 in his Premier League career, at least we thought. That would leave him one behind David James’ record with Arsenal’s next league game at Stamford Bridge, home of Čech’s former club Chelsea.
However, the goalkeeper took to Twitter on Sunday to deny that he is that close to the record, insisting that a clean sheet only counts if a goalkeeper plays the entire 90 minutes.
Good morning everybody, I took time to have a look into my number of clean sheets as there is so many different numbers regarding that 1/2
— Petr Cech (@PetrCech) September 13, 2015
You have to play full 90 minutes to count a Premier League clean sheet … That’s the rule , so only the games gk starts and finishes . 2
— Petr Cech (@PetrCech) September 13, 2015
So where does that leave us?
I have 171 Premier league clean sheets in total but can’t count 4 because I didn’t play full 90 minutes … So the correct number is : 167 !
— Petr Cech (@PetrCech) September 13, 2015
Now I’m even more confused. Čech definitely has three for Arsenal and the official Chelsea website said he managed 166 for them, so that’s 169. Where has he got 167 from?
Someone’s messed up, and everything is now more unclear than it was before he tweeted. No matter what, let’s just hope he makes it to 170 172 168…let’s just hope he adds another clean sheet to his impressive collection next weekend.