Petr Cech believes Alexis Sanchez will soon win over a disgruntled section of Arsenal fans and remains fully committed to the club despite his failed deadline day move to Manchester City.
The 28-year-old received a mixture of boos and cheers upon his introduction as a 75th-minute substitute in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Bournemouth at Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal had an agreement in principle to sell Sanchez to City for £60million on the basis they could find a suitable replacement but failed to complete a move for Monaco winger Thomas Lemar.
Sanchez, therefore, had to return to north London to begin seeing out the final year of his contract, although City and a number of top European clubs are expected to make fresh approaches in January.
Supporters were seemingly divided over Sanchez’s continuing presence at the club but Cech insists he has been welcomed back into the dressing room with open arms.
“I spoke with Alexis and he wants to win,” said Cech. “Sometimes people say ‘he does this, he does that’ but I think in a way, he is a guy who plays with all his passion and all his heart. You could see he knew he came late and the manager opted not to risk and put him on the bench.
“When we needed him to come on, he came on and put a shift in. Mesut [Ozil] was outstanding defensively, offensively – he put a huge amount of work in the game and so was everybody else. That is exactly what we expect and what we want.”
However, Cech claimed he did not hear the crowd reaction to Sanchez’s return to action. “When I hit the post [in attempting to save an effort from Jermain Defoe], [physio] Colin [Lewin] was apparently standing, waiting and talking to me from behind the goal.
In Pictures | Arsenal vs Bournemouth | 09/09/2017
“I didn’t even know he was there. I don’t pay attention to what’s around, I just play my game. So I don’t know what reception he got.”
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Premier League clubs have since voted to close the transfer window before the start of the season to help prevent uncertainties such as Sanchez’s situation dragging on into the campaign and Cech said: “We are in professional football and if you plan your season, by pre-season you should know what you want and what you don’t want, the players you want and don’t want.
“I am actually happy everybody voted for that so next season, as soon as it starts everybody needs to be ready with their squads. I think it will give more stability to everybody because you could see you already play three games where some players are on the fringe of going and then maybe don’t play as well as they should. If they stay, they stay, if they don’t they don’t and I don’t think it is right.”
A brace from Danny Welbeck either side of a superb effort from Alexandre Lacazette handed Arsenal a comfortable victory which represented a fine response to their 4-0 drubbing at Liverpool prior to the international break.
“I don’t like it when you need to respond to a bad result,” he said. “You shouldn’t have bad results. I am happy with the response but I hope it is the last time we need to respond, that we will carry on and play at this level in every game.
“In this league, you can see if you are a fraction off the level, you can get easily beaten like we were at Liverpool. On Saturday Liverpool experienced the complete opposite [losing 5-0 at City].
“It was a difficult game for them but you can see in this league there are small margins and small details that can make a huge difference and obviously you need to make sure you are ready.”