Veteran Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has expressed his frustration after the team’s 2-1 defeat to Watford on Tuesday night.

The Gunners slipped further behind Chelsea in the title race after losing at home in the league for the second time this season.

As a result, Cech has admitted his teammates were certainly not at their best during a sluggish first half which saw them concede twice in the opening 15 minutes.

“We had a very bad start,” the former Chelsea goalkeeper said in his post-match interview.

“We were unlucky with the first goal when it takes a big deflection and it goes in. Obviously it gave a lot of hope and motivation to Watford’s side because this was something that lifted them up. But then I think we didn’t play well at all.

“We were second best in the first half. We made so many bad passes, we lost every challenge, we were simply second best, as I said. In the second half we improved, we had a lot of chances. I thought we were brilliant second half, but obviously we only scored one goal.

“We had chances but the keeper made some very good saves, we hit the bar and we could say we were unlucky in that way. But for the first-half performance, we actually didn’t deserve a little bit of luck.

“I always say that at this level you cannot play 80 minutes, or 85. You have to play 90 minutes with full concentration and everybody on top of their game.”

Even so, Cech insists the team’s preparation ahead of Tuesday’s affair cannot be questioned, especially after the positive recent results.

“It was too much for us to take in the first half and it’s very hard to say why because we were prepared, we were on back-to-back wins, important wins, we had the momentum after the Burnley game and obviously the Southampton game went completely our way, exactly the way we wanted.” he added

“This was a huge setback because this was the game we wanted to win and we wanted to put ourselves in a better position going into the weekend.”

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