Good morning Gooners! How are we all feeling after that one?! They don’t make it easy for us fans do they?!
Arsenal came into the game knowing only a win would suffice and that’s exactly what they got, so in the grand scheme of things, I’m not complaining. In this new ‘mini-league’ only wins will do and it was absolutely vital that Arsenal got off to a good start, in what was – on paper at least – one of our hardest games of the five remaining. I actually believe that five league wins will be enough to win us this league, I truly do. What we have to factor in is our recent form. Let’s face it, we’ve been awful. Only one win in six, is not title winning form and it doesn’t necessarily suggest that we can go on and win five on the spin, so breaking that trend and hopefully starting a new run of form was imperative.
The game
It nearly got off to a truly awful start with Newcastle having a few early openings, which thankfully came to nothing and with David Raya having to make a save and it soon got a lot better for Arsenal. In the second of a sequence of pre-planned corner routines, Arsenal found Eberechi Eze on the edge of the penalty area and he made no mistake, lashing the ball into the top left corner, leaving Nick Pope with absolutely no chance.
At that point, I foolishly thought Arsenal might push on and winning with relative ease. I think that speaks a lot about the little bubble that I make for myself when watching Arsenal than anything remotely connected to reality! The next 85 minutes or so were pretty torturous, it has to be said. Everyone at The Emirates knew exactly how huge this game was and with every minute that passed, the pressure increased that little bit more, reaching almost unbearable levels in stoppage time.
On reflection though, did Newcastle really threaten that much? Did the Sky Sports hype train fed into our insecurities and make us see something that wasn’t really there?! Maybe it’s a bit of both, but after watching the highlights back, this definitely wasn’t a game where we were hanging on, despite it feeling that way. That chance for Yoane Wissa, which to be fair was a really, really good chance, was all that Newcastle could muster in the whole of the second half. This is a Newcastle team in poor form right now, but make no mistake, this is a team filled with high level, quality players that we have often struggled against in recent times and a win against them is something that should not be underestimated.
Should it have been more?
That’s the one thing that’s sticking in the back of my mind at the moment – should it have been more? The goal difference discussion has been played to death over the past week, so we all know how key that could be come the end of the season and a one goal win yesterday edged us ahead on points and but only by a single goal on goal difference. I know we play again before City play, but what keeps playing over and over again in my head is that if we win the next game by a solitary goal, City will feel like we felt after their result against Burnley in the week – a little bit of relief that they’re not further ahead.
Maybe I’m reading into it a bit too much, especially as we have another home game against Fulham coming up next week, but it felt like a two nil win would have hit home that bit harder and that counter attack with Viktor Gyokeres misplacing a simple pass is something I’m struggling to look past. I’m sorry, but a professional footballer who cost over £50m should be able to roll that ball across the pitch to three of his wide open teammates in his sleep, yet the Swede never looked like doing so. Too harsh? Maybe, but when it comes to this stage of the season, these moments are multiplied by about a thousand and can have massive impacts on whether or not this team achieves its goals or not and I’m therefore not in a particular patient mood when players fail to perform their roles to the required standard. You could levy the same at Kai Havertz last week, to be balanced about this. Those misses could end up being truly costly. Yet, Havertz contributed so much to the overall performance that you can almost forgive that. Despite his goals, Gyokeres does not have enough credit in the bank to be squandering should gilt edge chances to put the game to bed and we therefore maybe need to have a conversation in the summer about whether or not this is the guy or not. To be continued…
Other positivies
After such an important win, I can’t leave the post on that sour note so how about some more positives?
Another clean sheet. Not to be sniffed at, especially against the likes of William Osula, Yoane Wissa, Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimares, Harvey Barnes etc. That should hopefully give the team confidence going into the remaining games.
Myles Lewis-Skelly played in midfield!!!! Did you see it?! It really happened, I saw it with my own eyes!! On top of that surprise, I’m going to add in that I actually thought he looked pretty good in there. Particuraly from an attacking perspective where he found a few nice passes into the attackers (one to Saka in particular). It’s almost like there’s where he’s supposed to play and something that all Arsenal fans have been pointing out for the best part of two years!!! Hopefully this is something that we’ll see again between now and the end of the season, when we look to close out games and/or provide respite to the likes of Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi.
The last positive I want to end on is one that I’m sure brought a smile to Gooners’ faces across the world, the return of Bukayo Saka. Not only that, from his brief cameo, this actually looked like the real Bukayo Saka, that we’ve only seen glimpses of all season. Maybe I’m over indexing this a bit, but I was really impressed with him. That first moment where he took a touch and got his shot off really set the tone for me and he looked dangerous in every action from that point onwards.
It was a stark contrast to the despair that I was feeling after the withdrawals of Havertz and Eze (hopefully precautionary, it definitely looked that way for Eze at least) left us with that dreaded front line of Gabriel Martinelli, Viktor Gyokeres and Noni Madueke. By just introducing one additional player in Bukayo Saka, that attack went from looking like the one that had played a key role in our recent wretched form, to actually looking half decent. I know Newcastle were pushing forward at this point, but there was a few nice moments in there, nice link-up play and definitely cause for optimism. Imagine a frontline of Saka, Havertz and Eze…not that is something to truly get excited about. Let’s hope they can all stay fit and maybe, just maybe, we can get this over the line. Get some rest Gooners, we travel to Madrid next…