Petr Cech in Twitter spat with Bayer Leverkusen as they mock performance in Arsenal’s defeat by Manchester City
Arsenal goalkeeper was mocked for nearly scoring an own-goal while trying to play out from the back, only for him to respond and label their tweet ‘sad’ and unprofessional
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Petr Cech has hit back at what he perceived to be a “sad” and unprofessional tweet from the Bayer Leverkusen Twitter account following his performance against Manchester City, having been given the chance to start by manager Unai Emery ahead of summer signing Bernd Leno.
Cech nearly embarrassed himself when a back-pass under pressure from midfielder Matteo Guendouzi was mis-hit by the goalkeeper and nearly put into his own net, with the 36-year-old visibly breathing a sigh of relief as the ball went out for a corner.
It proved an up-and-down performance from Cech, who saved a one-on-one chance against Sergio Aguero and also denied Raheem Sterling and Aymeric Laporte from close range in the 2-0 defeat, but he was also caught out by Sterling for the opening goal as the shot from the edge of the penalty area easily beat him.
Having sold Leno to Arsenal for £20m in the recently-closed transfer window, Leverkusen’s Twitter account decided to poke fun at Cech’s moment to forget, adding to a video of the incident “we might know a guy” before including a video of Leno playing the ball out while with Leverkusen, with the side scoring fewer than 16 seconds later.
The tweets drew a response from Cech, who is one of the more vocal players on social media in the Premier League, and he criticised the club’s social media team for not sharing the same values as Arsenal, which include “professionalism and sportsmanship”.
“@Arsenal we share important values which make us a big club not only on the football side,” Cech wrote. “Fair competition, professionalism and sportsmanship are the biggest ones you teach young footballers and it’s sad to see when other clubs don’t share the same values @bayer04_en.”
In an attempt to play down the spat, the Leverkusen account responded: “Hi Petr. It seems our joke about wanting to see Leno, our former player, in action has been taken a bit more harshly/personally than intended. It was only a bit of banter. We’re all for the values you’ve stated and wish you and your big club all the best. Nice 1v1 save on Aguero!”
The tweets are the latest in a line of clubs using social media to take a more comical approach to try and engage with supporters. Serie A side Roma have been one of the more prominent accounts on Twitter, while a number of teams in Germany including Leverkusen have followed their approach – clearly not always to the pleasure of certain players that end up on the receiving end.
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