Football
Mattias Karen, Arsenal correspondent 7y

Arsenal's Petr Cech hopes penalty-saving luck 'reverses'

Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has said that penalty takers have been getting the better of him this season, but he's not going to change his approach to saving spot kicks.

Cech has failed to save any of the seven penalties he has faced this campaign, and is 0-for-9 in total since joining the club two years ago.

Despite noticing a growing trend for players to shoot down the middle, Cech said he will not change his tactics of trying to read the player's body language before making a split-second decision on which way to dive.

"There are probably goalkeepers who just decide prior to the kick, I go right. I don't know, because everybody can have a slightly different approach to it," Cech told the Arsenal Weekly podcast.

"But my approach has been working, until this season, quite well. But unfortunately the players keep their calm and manage to score against me this season. So hopefully there will be a moment when it reverses."

Cech hasn't saved a penalty in the Premier League since 2011, and a recent analysis by ESPN FC showed he guessed the wrong way on 10 straight spot kicks against league opponents. But when describing his approach to saving penalties, he said he makes those decisions based on what he sees from the player during their run-up to the ball.

"You see the way they take the ball, how far they go off the ball, you can see whether they will shoot strong or whether they will place the ball," he said. "I never make a decision, 'OK I go left. However the player runs, I go left.' No. The decision is, you [consider] the probabilities, you see the way the situation goes, but in the last split second you read what the player tries to do. And that's when you make the final decision, is that split second."

According to Transfermarkt, Cech has saved a total of 16 of the 66 penalties he has faced in career. That includes stopping Arjen Robben's effort in extra time of the Champions League final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich, where he also denied Ivica Olic in the ensuing shootout.

But he said that a perfect penalty is more or less unstoppable even when the goalkeeper goes the right way.

"There is a little element of luck obviously. But on the other hand it's not only about luck. It's about the skill of the players," he said.

"Because if you have a skilful player who can keep his nerve and just execute from the penalty spot you can go the right way at the right time and you will never save it. Because when the kick is kicked well then obviously you have no chance."

The former Czech Republic international also acknowledged that more players seem to shoot straight down the middle these days, especially late in games, and that he's been tempted at times to stay upright.

"Yes, of course," he said. "But then sometimes when you see the way the player runs toward the ball, there are many situations where you hardly believe in that fraction of a second when that decision is made and the position of the player is there, that you think [he's shooting down the middle]. But obviously some people disguise the shot very well and it can happen."

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