Newcastle United were educated in how to play football at the Emirates by an Arsenal side playing at the absolute top of their game.
Newcastle have a disgraceful record at the Emirates, having not even scored at the ground for 10 years before tonight never mind coming away with three points, but tonight it felt Eddie Howe's men just rolled over and let Arsenal do what they want.
Actually, that's not fair. It's very easy to get carried away after a performance like that and say that we're done and that Eddie Howe has got it all wrong, but Arsenal are tearing teams apart for fun in the Premier League right now. Their current run of scoring upwards of three goals per game is nothing short of madness, so yes, we were poor, but they were outstanding and when a team plays as well as they did they could beat literally anyone.
Loris Karius was put under constant pressure from the off and it wasn't long before his goal was breached in comical fashion with Tino Livramento playing a goal-line clearance off the floored Sven Botman's knee for it to just creep over the line. To be fair to Tino, Botman should have had the ball cleared before it got to that point, but the less said about Botman tonight the better - I'll let Rich say what needs to be said about him when he compiles his player ratings.
Six minutes later Kai Havertz doubled the home side's lead with a beautifully-worked goal that, again, could have been avoided had Botman been awake.
Newcastle somehow went in at the break just two goals down, which was miraculous in itself given that Arsenal had something like 99.9% possession with 99.6% of it in the attacking third. At least that's how it felt.
Eddie Howe must have got into them at half time because after having zero shots in the first half, we created two opportunities within the first couple of minutes in the second half. Arsenal seemed to take their foot off the gas and let us play with the ball for a bit, but it didn't last long and Bukayo Saka sent Tino Livramento to for a hot dog before drilling the ball beyond Loris Karius after it somehow sailed right by Fabian Schar.
Newcastle were then undone by a set-piece for the second time in the game as Jakub Kiwior nodded home from a Declan Rice corner to make it 4-0.
Former Arsenal man Joe Willock made his return to action and to the Emirates coming off the bench along with Dan Burn who linked up to give Newcastle a consolation goal with Burn teeing up a cross for Willock to flick a looping header over David Raya.
I don't know about you, but I really don't want to look at social media right now. Our fans are going to be rioting and the Arsenal fans are going to be insufferable.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
14 | 18 | 35 |
2 |
Chelsea
|
15 | 17 | 31 |
3 |
Arsenal
|
15 | 14 | 29 |
4 |
Manchester City
|
15 | 6 | 27 |
5 |
Nottingham Forest
|
15 | 1 | 25 |
6 |
Aston Villa
|
15 | 0 | 25 |
7 |
Brighton
|
15 | 3 | 24 |
8 |
Bournemouth
|
15 | 3 | 24 |
9 |
Brentford
|
15 | 3 | 23 |
10 |
Fulham
|
15 | 2 | 23 |
11 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
15 | 12 | 20 |
12 |
Newcastle United
|
15 | -2 | 20 |
13 |
Manchester United
|
15 | 1 | 19 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
15 | -8 | 18 |
15 |
Everton
|
14 | -7 | 14 |
16 |
Leicester
|
15 | -9 | 14 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
15 | -6 | 13 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
15 | -13 | 9 |
19 |
Wolves
|
15 | -15 | 9 |
20 |
Southampton
|
15 | -20 | 5 |