Cech discusses Arsenal’s ongoing struggles this season but insists Arteta needs ‘time’

Petr Cech has discussed Arsenal’s ongoing struggles this season but insists Mikel Arteta needs ‘time’ to turn around the club’s stuttering fortunes.

Arsenal currently sit just four points above the relegation places following their worst-ever start to a Premier League season, with the north London side winless in their past seven league fixtures ahead of a huge Boxing Day clash with Chelsea at the Emirates.

The scrutiny has further increased on Arteta after the Gunners were dumped out of the Carabao Cup in humbling fashion by Manchester City in midweek, whilst West Brom manager Sam Allardyce has ramped up the pressure on the Spaniard by insisting Arsenal are ‘absolutely’ in a relegation dogfight this season.

Cech – who finished his career with Arsenal before returning former club Chelsea as a technical director – has given his few on the Gunners’ struggles this season and has warned Arteta will not be able to rebuild the club overnight.

“It’s hard for any manager when results don’t go your way and then you try to change the way the team play or the philosophy of the football,” he told talkSPORT.

“When you start to change a little bit it needs time. As well to implement that faster you have to have everybody believe in it, you need some results as well.

“As soon as you are on the football pitch knowing you’ve won three on the bounce you don’t worry less about what’s going to happen you just worry about your game, you just go on and suddenly you go ‘Oh this works, that works’.

“It’s a lot about confidence. At the moment when you hit the wall this is the moment when you need everybody to pull in the same direction and help you out.

“This is the hardest part in football because it’s easy to suddenly say this is not working and do something else but you can’t do that all the time.

“But of course in modern football it’s the results that count and at the end of the day you need to find your balance to have success and the way you do it.”

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