By:Omar Jatta
Arsenal’s goalkeeper Petr Cech has broken the Premier League record for the most cleansheets in the Premier League.
Cech surpassed the 169 clean sheets kept by former England keeper David James, who played for clubs including Liverpool, Aston Villa, West Ham, Manchester City and Portsmouth.
The Czech Republic international joined Arsenal in the summer after serving 11 years with Chelsea, where he made 486 career appearances, winning four Premier League titles, four FA Cups, three League Cups, two Community Shield, one Champions League and Europa league titles.
The humble giant was reported to have broken James’ record earlier this season but he modestly took to twitter to dismiss the claim, saying at the time that four of his clean sheets could not be counted because he had not completed the full match. The former Chelsea goalie wrote on Sept. 13: “I have 171 Premier league clean sheets in total but can’t count 4 because I didn’t play full 90 minutes.”
The 33-year-old has finally taken his place in the history books with his 170th cleansheet following Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Bournemouth. He has now surpass James’ long-standing record.
The Arsenal shot-stopper shared his pride and delight after reaching the milestone and said he couldn’t wait for the final whistle to blow on Monday night.
“I must say at the end of the game I was proud,” he told Arsenal Player. “It is not every day you break the record of the best league in the world. I was really pleased we won the game as well because after the game we had at Southampton we had to bounce back in style.
“Overall we had a good performance and near the end, in the last five or 10 minutes, I started to check the clock as you start to think, ‘Okay, that is the game and you need to see it through and not concede’ and we did well not to.
“We concentrated until the last second because if even if you concede in the last three minutes then there is added time then it can be a very long five minutes. There can be a mistake and then you can lose the game and you need to concentrate from the start to the finish.
“It cannot be easy sometimes when you are in control and you are 2-0 up and the opposition is pushing for that goal. You have to make sure you are professional, organised and do the right things and today we knew how to do it.”
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who signed Cech from Chelsea last for £10 million, was full of praise for his goalkeeper whom he compared to former Arsenal great, David Seaman. Also adding the Czech International is right up there along with Seaman as one of the club’s greatest goalkeepers.
“He can be very proud – it is a remarkable achievement,” said Wenger. “People don’t realise how much commitment is behind that and also how much focus and consistency in his attitude. He’s a remarkably consistent goalkeeper and that is the most difficult achievement for somebody.”
