Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech says that the Gunners will need to collect “87 or 88” points to win the Premier League title this season.
The team is currently nine points behind league leaders Chelsea in fourth place, and the Czech international told Arsenal.com that he expects his former club to drop points despite winning twelve games in a row:
“Overall you need to be consistent to get to 87 or 88 points and it doesn’t really matter how you get to that. If you have back-to-back losses then you have to go and make up for it in different games. 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. here are still enough games to make up for our blip and I also think it’s impossible for our opponents to not drop points.”
Cech’s points target would mean the Gunners need 50 points from their remaining 20 league games, an average of 2.5 points per game. This would mean sixteen wins, two draws and two losses, or perhaps 15 wins and 5 draws.
In any combination it would require Arsenal not to go through any more blips in league form as Cech rightly points out. Their late 1-0 victory over West Brom on Boxing Day does show an increased resilience this season but whether Arsene Wenger’s men will be able to achieve the consistency required to meet Cech’s total, we will have to wait and see in the coming months.
