Petr Cech says Arsenal must record back-to-back victories against Swansea City and Tottenham Hotspur in the next week to relaunch their spluttering English Premier League title challenge.
The Gunners’ showdown with Swansea at the Emirates Stadium today marks the first of those games, with Arsene Wenger’s side aiming to bounce back from Sunday’s damaging 3-2 defeat at Manchester United.
That loss, together with Leicester City’s defeat of Norwich City 24 hours earlier and Tottenham’s victory over Swansea left Arsenal in third place, five points off the top.
That meant Arsenal squandered their good work in beating leaders Leicester seven days earlier, a win that had moved Wenger’s men second and appeared to shift the momentum of the title race in their direction, but instead of building on that win, Arsenal are now playing catch-up and the manner of their defeat at Old Trafford has raised questions about their stomach for the fight, as well as reigniting the debate about Wenger’s own future at the club.
The French coach is in no doubt about the reaction he is expecting from his players against a Swansea side who lie two places and three points above the relegation zone and are without a victory in four league games.
“We have to show that we are at the level of this fight,” Wenger told Arsenal Player. “Things can change quickly. We need to bounce back quickly on Wednesday night.”
The manager’s view was supported by Arsenal goalkeeper Cech, a veteran of four Premier League title successes with Chelsea.
“This [the defeat at United] was a big disappointment for us and is a step back after last week where we managed to overcome a deficit against Leicester at home,” Cech said. “This is a step back, but we need to keep working. We have two important games coming up this week and if we manage to win both the table might look better again.”
On paper, the second of those two games looks the most testing with Spurs in second place, three points clear of their north London rivals. With the derby scheduled for an early kickoff just three days after the Swansea clash, Wenger might be tempted to make changes in a bid to freshen up his side, with Olivier Giroud likely to return up front in place of Theo Walcott against the south Wales outfit.
Sunday’s defeat at White Hart Lane did nothing to ease Swansea’s relegation fears, although midfielder Leroy Fer insists there were grounds for optimism ahead of the visit to the Emirates Stadium.
“We have to keep our heads up and go again on Wednesday,” Fer said.
“There are positives to take from Sunday’s game and we will take that to the Emirates on Wednesday. We have a strong squad here and everyone is desperate to do their part to help the team get points,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier