A spectator for the first 20 minutes, by the time Petr Čech saw any action on Sunday afternoon his side were 3-0 up.

Mesut Özil and Alexis Sánchez launched attacks that Manchester United couldn’t contain as Arsenal raced into an early lead.

The goalkeeper was busier later on. A fantastic save to deny Anthony Martial just before the break was followed by good saves to stop Wayne Rooney and Bastian Schweinsteiger from scoring in the second half.

“We put in the right intensity and the first goal helped,” the former Chelsea goalkeeper told Arsenal Player after the game had ended. “Once you go one up, you can get the game under control. What was good was that we searched for the second and third goals and they came pretty quickly.

“We managed to get ourselves the advantage and I think we did remarkably well to control the game afterwards.”

Čech didn’t have a great deal to do as his team, all the way from Theo Walcott pressing from the front, was superb defensively. It’s another clean sheet for the 33-year-old, who has now celebrated four clean sheets in eight Premier League games as an Arsenal player.

“Every clean sheet counts,” he added. “There was an important save right at the end of the first half, which I’m pleased with. The whole team defended very well as a unit against Manchester United and we deserved the clean sheet.”

With the 3-0 advantage, Arsenal sat off and let United have the ball in the second half. To play like that but not concede chances shows a great deal of organisation and intelligence.

We have the ability to grind results out and it was nice to see more than one aspect to our game on Sunday afternoon. Petr Čech now stands behind that defence, and we look very difficult to break down when we are playing well.