The VICE Sports Premier League Player of the Weekend: Petr Cech

(This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.)

Every Monday morning we'll name our VICE Sports player of the weekend (bad luck if your game is on Monday night). But it's not about flattening the opposition with a robotically flawless performance. Sometimes, fallibility can be just as endearing. That's exactly the case with our first winner, who endured a lacklustre Premier League debut for his new club after a summer of sky-high hype.

Sometimes, sport is perfect. Sometimes, sport gets the hashtag narrative so spot on that you begin to suspect the Premier League is actually scripted, like those blokes pretending to fight in America wearing lycra. Therefore, our very first VICE Sports Player Of The Week goes to Petr Cech, famously now of Arsenal, for damn near giving most of the country a laughter-induced hernia on Sunday afternoon.

Thinkpieces about how Cech was the missing cog in Arsenal's new title-ready machine were unavoidable over the summer. It was like Happy by Pharrell, or people complaining about Vince Vaughn in True Detective; avoiding it was out of the question. Tweets poured in by the million from #GoonerFamily members, laughing at their Chelsea foe, claiming their helmeted former hero as their own in record time. The signing actually made complete sense, of course, what with Wojciech Szczęsny being better at taking selfies and sneaking cigarettes than making saves, and David Ospina seemingly too unfashionable to continue as the first choice.

In an almost Shakespearian twist of fate, the good will that had multiplied over the summer towards Cech was given a fresh bump on Saturday as Thibaut Courtois went through a Swansea player like Jason Statham, giving away a penalty in the process and getting himself sent off. Chelsea had to turn to Asmir Begovic from the bench rather than their recently departed legendary Czech stopper, and the champions were held at home on the opening day, much to the delight of Arsenal fans everywhere, watching on in their box-fresh club-branded scrum caps. All of this, so soon after they revelled in the majesty of taking home the Community Shield.

West Ham, the only thing quicker to leave Europe than the UKIP manifesto, weren't given much of a chance in the build up to the game. Their season had started about a week after the last one finished, and all they'd managed to achieve in the meantime was insuring that place in Europe via the Fairplay league wasn't going to be an issue again, putting together a disciplinary record only Charles Bronson could better. Petr Cech had started in goal for Arsenal, and Twitter was buzzing with the news that the last time they'd won the FA Cup two seasons running, the next year had seen them go unbeaten. That logic quickly proved itself to be about as reliable as Jack Wilshere's lower limbs.

Swinging a deep free-kick in to what some morons call 'the corridor of uncertainty', West Ham happily dismantled a collective belief that had taken an entire summer to build and solidify. Deciding to rush from his line and attack the ball, punching rather than catching, Cech tore away from his line like a 100m sprinter, launching himself into a leap like Batman with a budget helmet. Coming about as close to making a connection with the ball as the majority of the Labour leadership do with the electorate, Cheikhou Kouyate was left with a free header, sending West Ham in ahead at half-time.

Cech was not the only Arsenal player at fault for that goal, but neither was he blameless. In one moment, he had proven the few detractors who had dared to speak up during the summer right, and showed that his ability away from the safety of his line remains one of the major flaws in his game. What had been advertised since his signing suddenly appeared questionable, and Chelsea fans could collectively rest assured that their club had made the right decision in allowing the player to leave.

It was beautiful, in a perverted sort of way, that the one man Arsenal fans had expected least to let them down had done just that.

And then, unbelievably, he went ahead and did it again. Clearly rocked by the first mistake, his second was even worse. Mauro Zárate, turning on the edge of the box and letting off a strike weaker than a Meek Mill diss track, saw his effort creep into a side of the goal that Cech had simply decided he wasn't confident enough to dive across. The strike wasn't even close to the corner, and most goalkeepers would have made a routine save, but Cech somehow made a meal out of it so big that the bloke off Man Vs Food would've struggled.

Writing off Cech after one bad game would be the work of a fucking idiot, but laughing at the bloke after putting in one of the most solidly shit debut performances in recent memory is par for the course. In some ways, Arsenal fans sort of ask for it, really. I mean, at the time of writing, ArsenalFanTV have posted 18 separate videos to YouTube since full-time, one of which includes a grown man shouting "shut up" with so much effort he goes fully red in the face. Another contributor, dressed like he's been attacked by official merchandise, has gone viral on Twitter for copping a slap from a West Ham fan, presumably for trying to step to someone whilst wearing a club branded jacket, winter hat, and earphones, while drinking from a children's water bottle.

Sport doesn't just provide joy when you witness the good; it does so equally, if not more so, when the bad occurs, too. This won't be the only column Petr Cech features in today, but the rest of them will be laced with faux concern and hindsight dependant analysis, rather than being a celebration of the joy his being shit has provided the wider viewing public. Nobody else will be honest enough with themselves to award Petr Cech their Player Of The Week award, so it leaves us to pick up the pieces. Thank you Petr, for letting us laugh at you. Your contribution to our enjoyment of football this week has not gone unnoticed.

@rajbains