Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has put the blame on lack of cutting edge after his side suffered a 1-0 shock defeat to BATE Borisov in Europa League first leg of 32 tie.
Not results many expected from the Gunners but Stanislav Dragun’s strike was enough to hand the Belarusian side a victory ahead of the return leg next week. Arsenal had all the chance of winning the match but missed a couple of chances which proved costly in the end, as Alexander Lacazette was shown a red card for elbowing BATE defender.
Cech blamed the lack of cutting edge in the Gunners’ frontline, which did not include Mesut Ozil after he was axed from the traveling squad.
“Yesterday it was one of those games where if we played for another couple of hours probably we wouldn’t have scored,” Cech said.
“But there are games in football like that. You try, you play, the goal does not arrive and you have to go home with the result you don’t want but you have to pick yourself up and be ready for the second leg. This is the advantage of playing two-legged ties – when one game goes wrong you can always make up for it.”
“We didn’t take our chances. In the first-half, in particular, we played well and created enough chances to go ahead in the game but unfortunately, we didn’t take our chances and then we conceded in the last minute of the first half which obviously gave them a lot of confidence and belief.”
The Gunners still have a chance of advancing to the next round when they host Borisov at the Emirates next week.