Arsenal 1-0 Newcastle: Eze’s goal wins it as we endure it

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What kind of torture do you think you could endure if it meant we won the league?

Thumb screws? Waterboarding? The rack? The brazen bull? Maroon 5 blasting into your eardrums on a loop? Watching Arsenal play football? How far are you prepared to go?

I am delighted we won yesterday. I went on the ArsenalVision Podcast on Thursday and Elliot asked me if I would take five 1-0s in what remains of our Premier League season. Without hesitation I said ‘yes’.

BUT NOT LIKE THIS!

I realise winning is the most important thing, but this is my blog, I’ve always been completely honest about how I feel, and that game put me through some things yesterday. Even the amazing goal we scored was tinged with a side helping of ‘What are you doing?!’. We had a corner, we took it short, Noni Madueke played it to Martin Odegaard and his pass towards Eberechi Eze was cut out.

There was a second one, again it was short, this time Eze got a left footed shot away from the edge of the box which went not too far wide. Which obviously demonstrated the set-piece coach/analysts had identified something about Newcastle’s set-up which we could try and exploit, but when we had another corner and Odegaard dropped short to take the pass from Madueke, there was some frustration we didn’t just get the ball into the ‘danger area’.

Turns out the danger area is where Eze was, because Madueke ignored the captain, fed Havertz who laid it back, and Arsenal’s number 10 swept the ball home gloriously. A superb finish to put us 1-0 up after 10 minutes, and hopefully that would be the foundation for us to go all carpe diem and seize the day.

Er, not quite. Perhaps some of the anxiety around those short corners stemmed from the fact Newcastle had a glorious chance to score in the opening minute. Will Osula kicked fresh air instead of the ball, which was something of a let off, particularly on a day when you really wanted Arsenal to come out and start hard and fast. We were limp and slow. The goal felt like it should settle us, but I think Newcastle had the better of the first half overall, with 9 attempts on goal to our 3. David Raya had to make one decent save from a Sandro Tonali shot which was wobbling like my nerves as it fizzed towards goal.

Matters weren’t helped by an injury to Kai Havertz who was replaced by Viktor Gyokeres just after the half hour mark. Any injury at this stage of the season is not welcome at all, and that was compounded early in the second half when Eze went down and Gabriel Martinelli came on. Arsenal’s injury record is, frankly, absurd and a significant problem. It cannot be coincidence, and some joined up thinking is required to sort it out. Is it the demands of the manager and his style? Is it the medical team? A little from column A, a little from column B? Whatever it is, it’s an impediment to success and we have to fix it.

That left us with the Martinelli, Gyokeres, Madueke triumvirate up front which never works, and didn’t work again. We were also somewhat hamstrung (no pun intended) by the fact we only had one more window to make changes. Twenty minutes into the second half and Newcastle had 64% possession. Sure, they weren’t doing a great deal with it, but a one goal lead always feels precarious, and even more so when there’s a title on the line. Also, if you watched on Sky, they kept going on and on about how Newcastle were growing in confidence, but for me it was more about Arsenal playing badly. Which we did.

We didn’t win duels up front, we didn’t win second balls in midfield, there was such imprecision in our passing from start to finish, and the decision making was all over the place. That said, I think Newcastle were lucky not to go down to 10 men when Odegaard played Gyokeres in behind, Nick Pope came out to sweep up, missed the ball entirely and then fouled the Arsenal striker. The ref issued a yellow, probably because there was a covering defender, but if the defender makes that foul and the keeper is the last man, that’s going to be a red card. So why does a man with some gloves on get special dispensation for that kind of challenge?

As the clock ticked down, you hoped our famed defensive solidity would be the thing to see us through because we didn’t really look like scoring again. And to be fair, Newcastle didn’t really make a clear cut chance … until they did. A really smart pass over the top from Nick Woltemade found fellow substitute Yoane Wissa who was 8 yards out with just Raya to beat. Perhaps the advancing goalkeeper put some pressure on him, but he clumped it over the bar when he really should have scored. That was a bad, bad miss, and a lucky, lucky moment for Arsenal.

Bukayo Saka’s return was very welcome, he added a little control in the final third and helped us out in that sense. Odegaard had a shot well saved at the near post, but halfway through the 7 (seven!) minutes of injury time, we had a glorious opportunity to make the game safe. I am not a man prone to dramatic outbursts of swearing and environmental violence, but I can’t tell you how close I came to flinging my laptop at the TV when this moment transpired:

You just can’t not make that pass. All that space to roll the ball into the path of two players who then have a one on one, and you hit the defender? I know Gyokeres has been our top scorer, and fair play to him he is also fit and available, but I’ve found his inability to do basic things such a concern from the first time I watched him in our shirt. 34 Premier League games and all the cup games later, moments like this do nothing to convince me he’s going to improve in that regard.

I understand that incidents like this feel heightened because of the anxiety of the title race, and how desperate we all are to see the team go the distance, but what if this was 0-0 and that was the goal that could have won us the game? Anyway, the laptop remained un-flung, we tried our best to make the final few minutes scary by giving Newcastle a corner and a free kick in our half, but ultimately we saw it out.

No question it was a massive three points. I enjoyed the final whistle. The rest, not so much. I feel a bit Kate Bush ‘Wuthering Heights’, in that I hated it and I loved it too. We had to win, we did, that is the most important thing but as an experience it felt like something to endure rather than enjoy. Dare we score another goal in a game to give ourselves a cushion for our hearts and our churning insides? Dare we? WHY DO WE HATE CUSHIONS?!

Maybe this is just how it has to be to win a title these days, but honestly, I can’t ever remember a time in my Arsenal supporting life when I have felt so stressed by football. I get it, stakes is high, but holy cow, it’s a lot. Afterwards, Mikel Arteta was a bit more sanguine, saying:

I’m really happy with the win. We talked about game one and how important that was. We probably should have finished it with a bigger margin in certain moments of the game. But when it’s 1-0, it’s always tough because they have quality, because they brought so many good players from the bench as well. When we don’t finish the action, especially the open ones that we had, the margin is going to be smaller.

I don’t want to finish on a down note at all, because we won. One down, four more 1-0s to go. Argh! But seriously, Newcastle are a difficult team to play against, and our recent form hasn’t been good. I also firmly believe that as stressed as we might be as fans, the team is also feeling it. If not quite crippled by the pressure of this title race, certainly inhibited by it. Whatever you think of our style of football or certain individuals, we’re capable of better than this, but what matters this morning is that we have the three points under our belts, and we now sit back on top of the table. Anything other than a win yesterday would have been a disaster, and we found a way to do it.

Worth noting this is the second time an Eze goal has been enough to win a home game, the previous was the 1-0 against Crystal Palace. I also think Piero Hincapie deserves a mention for his defensive performance. On a day when the game is horrid and scrappy, he’s the perfect player to dig in and do what’s necessary. I liked what he did and how he did it, especially the way he seems to finish games with some extra bite.

Whatever comfort or optimism some aspects of our performance against Man City generated will have been obliterated by yesterday, and we now have to go to Madrid in midweek with some big question marks over us. Not just in terms of how we might play, but who we might have available. Still, the points are ours, and I feel a bit better having got this down on paper, so to speak. Europe is a different challenge, so let’s hope it’s one we can rise to ahead of another tricky Premier League fixture next weekend.

I think I need to lie down again. Have a great Sunday everyone.

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