The Gunners' 1-0 victory at Emirates Stadium yesterday saw them keep their lead at the summit and take them six points ahead of their third-placed opponents.

Former Chelsea defender William Gallas headed the first-half winner after Cech committed himself to catching a corner but failed to collect the ball.

Understandably, the Czech Republic goalkeeper is keen to move on and forget the incident as soon as possible.

"It is difficult and for me I am disappointed because, in the end, the game was decided by my mistake," Cech said.

"It was a mistake from me. There is no explanation or excuse. It was a simple as that.

"This is the part of the game. You play in these big games with this passion. These are the best games to play in and you always want to do your best.

"I love this type of game, but will not remember this one as one of the best ones.

"You have to analyse yourself and see why you made a mistake, what was the moment you could have done better.

"Of course you have to watch it, but in the end you have to turn the page and go on."

Cech felt the result was unjust as there was little between the two sides except the decisive goal.

"When you see the game overall, in the first half, they had no chances. They had nothing, only a bit of possession but that was it," Cech said.

"We controlled every movement they tried to do.

"They had only one corner, I made a mistake and they were 1-0 up.

"In the second half, we were a better side and created more chances, apart from the last 10 minutes when we risked everything and were going up and down. They had a goal disallowed for offside.

"For 80 minutes of the game we were the better side, but could not score the goal.

"In the end, history will not ask how did you win the game against Chelsea?

"In a few months, you will only know that they won the game and got six points ahead of us. That's it."

Cech added: "We need to keep going because we have already closed the gap once, so we can do it another time.

"There is still a long way to go. We play them at home and have plenty of games left so we can do it again.

"There are still big games between the big four, so they can slip there.

"You cannot underestimate the other games because every single point counts and they have the same importance.

"We will see. I still believe we have closed the gap once, and we can do it again.

"There is still a long way to go for them to be celebrating."

John Terry's ankle injury yesterday was as damning as the result for Avram Grant's side.

Chelsea striker Salomon Kalou today revealed Arsenal midfielder Emmanuel Eboue apologised to Terry for the challenge which left him on crutches and facing the possibility of Christmas on the sidelines.

Blues captain Terry could be out for several weeks, though the club have yet to indicate how long he is likely to be unavailable for.

Kalou revealed he spoke to his Ivorian compatriot Eboue after yesterday's game.

And Kalou, who was unhappy with Eboue's tackle, praised the Gunners player for at least offering an apology.

"I was saying to Eboue that it was a red card because he did it on purpose - but he denied that," said Kalou.

"He said he tried to block the ball and it was not on purpose. He said sorry to John. He didn't mean to do it, but to apologise was a nice thing to do.

"John will be a big loss and is very important to the squad. We will miss him and it will be difficult to do it without him but we have the players to do that."