Cape Town – Petr Cech has hinted that under Arsene Wenger, Arsenal placed so much emphasis on playing the right way that they stifled their ability to win.
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Under new head coach Unai Emery, the Gunners have won five games in all competitions after losing their opening two league matches to Manchester City and Chelsea.
They trail early pace-setters Liverpool by six points, but given that the north Londoners have not won a league title since 2004, Cech is not getting carried away with talk of a title challenge.
"For any club who wins titles in the recent years, you have a team with the knowhow how to finish it off – and you can see it in any sport," he told reporters.
"Take Tiger Woods – it's 10 years since he won a Major tournament. The longer it goes on, the harder it becomes.
"This club has not won the league for over 10 years so, obviously, you need to get back into knowing how to do it.
"We started with the new manager from scratch, basically, and we try to get this mentality of winning every game, progressing every game, working every day and, hopefully, we can build this up and win the title sooner rather than later. That will make the big difference.
"In the past I would say the Arsenal way was more important than getting the points sometimes and this is not how you win the league.
"Sometimes you need to make sure you win an ugly game, when you are not playing well but you just dig deep, close the back door and win 1-0 no matter how. I think this is what we lacked."
Cech was involved in four Premier League title-winning campaigns during his spell at Chelsea and will be looking to pass his expertise in the art of winning on to his Gunners team-mates.
