Petr Cech admits Arsenal don't expect to catch Tottenham after dropping further points at Sunderland

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James Benge24 April 2016

Petr Cech has abandoned hope of Arsenal catching north London rivals Tottenham after his side were held to a 0-0 draw at Sunderland.

A third draw in four league games means Arsenal are four point behind second-placed Spurs, whose game in hand takes place on Monday night at home to West Brom.

In Arsene Wenger’s 19-year reign his side have never finished below Tottenham in the league and in recent years Arsenal have overcome sizeable deficits in the closing weeks of the season to ensure their supporters can celebrate ‘St Totteringham’s Day’, after which it is impossible for Spurs to overtake Arsenal in that year’s league table.

However with Tottenham having lost just one of their last 10 league games as they look to continue their chase of Leicester City, whose 4-0 victory over Swansea ended any mathematical chance of Arsenal winning the title, Cech doubts Spurs will be caught in second.

“You need to start winning games,” he said. We have three games to play and we need to get as many points as we can.

“I don’t think it will be enough to finish in the top two now as the other teams have taken advantage of our two points dropped.”

After being pegged back by West Ham and Crystal Palace in recent weeks the 0-0 draw to Sunderland once more saw Arsenal fail to make their dominance of the match count.

The visitors had 70 per cent possession but converted it into just seven shots on goal, with Olivier Giroud bearing the brunt of criticism for his showing at the Stadium of Light.

Six dropped points from their past four games has allowed Manchester City to claim third place and Cech struggled to explain why Arsenal had failed to secure a much-needed victory.

“We don’t seem to [be able to] kill the game off in the last two weeks and we dropped twice points and now the fight is to get the best position for the Champions League,” he said.

“I thought that we should have scored in the first half. We had chances to get the lead but that doesn’t make a difference when you don’t score. They are fighting for their lives and they obviously had that motivation and once they got into the game, it became a difficult day. They have done really well.

“I thought we kept the ball well and created enough chances with our possession but we waited too long for an opportunity. I think we need to find a way to put it into the back of the net and we didn’t do so.”

A third place finish in still in Arsenal’s hands, though to secure it they may need to win away to Manchester City next month.

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