Interview

Cech - We've made life difficult for ourselves

Petr Cech

Petr Cech admits that we have "made it difficult for ourselves" after losing the first leg of our Europa League last-32 tie with BATE Borisov.

Our No 1 spoke to the media after the match and discussed the game, Alex Lacazette's red card and more. This is what he said:

on our performance…

We didn’t take our chances. I think that in the first half we played well and created enough chances to go ahead in the game, but unfortunately we didn’t take our chances and we conceded in the last minute of the half, which obviously gives them a lot of confidence and belief. In the second half they were waiting for the counter-attack and we were trying to find our way to score the goal and we scored one, but it was ruled as offside. We got the result we didn’t want. We want to score goals and we want to win and we want to put ourselves in a good position for the second leg, but we’ve made it more difficult for ourselves.

on whether the condition of the pitch hindered our play…

It was the same for both teams. With a better pitch we would probably have put away the chances we had because you would have better service for the player, but it was the same for both teams. Regardless of that we had enough chances to win the game and we didn’t do that. We have to make sure we win the home leg now and I’m sure we can do that.

on Lacazette’s red card…

From where I was standing I thought that the referee ran quickly and his decision was made in no time, so they all quickly knew that he wants to give a red card.

on whether that sums up our frustrating night…

Today was one of those games where if you play another couple of hours we wouldn’t have scored, but there are games like that in football. You try, you play and sometimes you go home with the result you don’t want, but you have to pick yourself up and make sure that you’re ready for the second leg. That’s the advantage of a two-leg play-off; if one game is bad you can always make up for it.

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