Newcastle hosted Arsenal at St. James’ Park in the Premier League’s Saturday lunchtime kick-off, which resulted in the Gunners picking up all three points for only the second time this season, continuing their perfect away form.
The goal came early on in the second half, with another own goal gifted to Arsenal this season, turned in off Fabricio Coloccini from an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain strike. With the only goal coming from an own goal, lucky? Maybe, but Arsenal were felt hard done by earlier into the game after a clear penalty was dismissed by the referee.
It was an eventful game from early on, with referee Andre Marriner not shying away from big decisions, after sending off Newcastle summer signing Aleksandar Mitrovic in the 16th minute, which turned out to be a very good, and correct call.
What five things can we take from the game this weekend?
Arsenal NEED a new striker
Beginning with now the most boring, but nevertheless certainly the most important point, Arsenal need to buy a new forward, end of.
Questions were raised at the start of the season whether Theo Walcott could fill the vacancy after his outstanding form at the end of the previous season, but it’s become defiantly evident that his form hasn’t continued into the new season.
There were chances that could have been easily taken by Walcott during Saturday’s game, which would have made Arsenal’s afternoon much easier, but he failed to put away any of the chances handed to him.
With a proper, world-class forward, maybe the travelling fans might have seen their team put in three or four goals on the day, but Walcott wasn’t the man to do that, neither was Olivier Giroud who came off the bench and also failed to make any sort of impact.
Arsenal though, play better with a striker. as they have someone to aim for. When Olivier Giroud isn’t playing, it’s as if all other attacking players are playing as a false number nine, as no-one can match Giroud’s presence up top.
It’s been repeated time and time again, but if Arsenal want to challenge for the league or have any chance of winning it, they have to go and and buy a fresh new centre-forward, at the very least, but they’re running out of time with only days until the window slams shut.
Monreal the number one left back?
After a long period of battling for the left back position between Nacho Monreal and Kieran Gibbs, it seems the Spaniard has become the more favourable player to fill the position so far this season, and it’s clear why.
He’s been excellent this season for Arsenal after being second best to English teammate, Gibbs, for quite some time.
He’s been more composed, more relaxed, is a lot stronger and has improved every aspect of his game since the start of last season. During Saturday’s duel with Newcastle, he was solid and made no errors.
He’s matured as a player, seems more knowledgeable about the game and the Premier League, and seems to read everything better, leading to less mistakes and leaking less goals as well as improving the Arsenal back four, which no doubt needed improving.
Arsenal playing their best football
It might not have been the start of the campaign that most fans and certainly the manager might have wanted, but there was no doubt Arsenal were playing some of their most dangerous and fluent football this season.
After disappointing results, so far the following game has seen Arsenal show a good reaction, with a hunger to make up for any previously dropped points and win some back.
In the first half of Saturday’s game, the Gunners were moving the ball around really well and Newcastle couldn’t get the ball off them. Each killer pass was eliminating three or four Newcastle players at a time from the game, Arsenal were looking to create chances rather than just play the ball around until a chance comes along, they were pushing for a goal straight from kick off.
The north London side were definitely the more dominant. After 90 minutes, Arsenal had 73.8% possession compared to Newcastle’s 26.2%. That’s a huge chunk of the game the Gunners were controlling and is even more impressive considering they were playing away from home. As well as that, they had 22 attempts at goal, which was a lot more than Newcastle could manage as they only troubled Cech the once, who had next to nothing to do all afternoon.
Ramsey’s performance highlighted Ozil’s limitations
Being one of the best in his position, Ozil has very few limitations, but being the player that he is, Ramsey showed them today as he filled his position whilst the German was sidelined with a minor knee injury.
The Welsh international was named Man of the Match because of his performance and was well worthy of it too.
He gave Arsenal movement which often Ozil doesn’t. It’s not a criticism of the German as such, it’s just the game he plays, he’s a lot more static in the middle and keeps things ticking over whilst looking to create chances for the players around him.
Whereas Ramsey is the opposite, he’s much more mobile and makes runs left, right and centre looking for the ball to be played in his path rather than into his feet like Mesut.
This way it allows more room in the middle for wider players such as Alexis Sanchez, who can drift more central giving the team another option. It also gives the wide men an extra target to aim for when crossing the ball into the box.
Arsenal need to continue perfect away form, but improve at home
After four games this season, the Gunners have collected a disappointing 7 points from a possible 12, coming from two wins, one draw and a loss.
Both victories for the Arsenal have come on the road with Saturday’s win against Newcastle at St. James’ Park and the win at Selhurst park against Crystal Palace a couple of weeks ago.
This is showing that Arsenal are capable of putting in good performances and winning away from home, which is vital for a team that want to win the league. It means the north London side cannot afford, and have to stop dropping points at home.
It’s usually the other way round, they struggle to pick up points on their travels and rely on winning at home, but so far this season it isn’t the case. The Red’s need to continue their away form, and concentrate on winning at the Emirates, and they’ll have a much better shot at winning the league, especially with a lot of the top teams also dropping points, the Gunners need to take huge advantage of this.
