Speaking after our 1-0 loss against Chelsea at home, Petr Cech, was frustrated by our early red card as it changed the whole game.
Per Mertesacker received a straight red card for sticking his leg out and bringing down Diego Costa, who would have been through on goal in the 18th minute. Although there weren’t many complaints about the card itself, the incident was frustrating, as we were then down to 10 men for 70 minutes.
Cech described the early red as a decisive moment in the match and appeared frustrated that although we could continue to build attacks, we lacked the quality we needed in the final third.
“Unfortunately the decisive moment came quite early in the game,” the goalkeeper said.
“And Chelsea took advantage of that and scored. From there they tried to control the game, and obviously playing 11 against 10 for 70 minutes… it’s always going to be a big advantage.”
When questioned on whether he had spoken to Per about the sending off, Cech admitted he hadn’t yet and said that they had no complaints about the red card.
The match will go down as one of the most disappointing as there was so much expectation surrounding it. This was the time we were supposed to beat our London rivals but instead we were frustratingly poor. All we can do is move on to the next game but that doesn’t make the bitterness go away any quicker.