Cech adamant Arsenal have plenty of time to close the gap

Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech insists there is still plenty of time for the Gunners to make up for points dropped in recent weeks in the Premier League title race.

The north-London side have dropped to an all-too-familiar fourth place in the league standings after back-to-back defeats in mid-December, but steadied the ship on Boxing Day when Olivier Giroud’s header handed them a 1-0 victory over West Brom.

While Arsenal have stuttered Cech’s former club Chelsea have recorded 12 wins on the spin – keeping 10 clean sheets in that time – and sit nine points ahead of the Gunners atop the standings.

However the Czech Republic stopper is adamant the gap is not too big to bridge, and with four Premier League titles to his name so far, he knows what he is talking about.

“Overall you need to be consistent to get to 87 or 88 points and it doesn’t really matter how you get to that,” he said.

“Then you can catch up. It’s a long-term competition so if you have a period where you’ve not been particularly great, you can still make up for it.

“There are still enough games to make up for our blip. I also think it’s impossible for our opponents to not drop points.

“There’s still a big opportunity for us to close the gap now.”