Arsenal 0 Newcastle 1

By Myles Palmer

Arsenal 0 Newcastle 1  

Andy Carroll 45

I thought that Arsenal would play with far more fluency and tempo.

 But they weren’t up for it in the first ten minutes and Newcastle realised it could be their day.

Arshavin was on the bench, Walcott on the right,  Nasri on the left -  and Chamakh had a stinker.

He let the ball bounce off his heel (8 minutes), allowed a floated pass from Nasri run under his foot (31), and then tried a five yard pass  to Walcott when he was in a shooting position in the D (39). Why not hit that ball with your left foot? Come on, man ! You're a 26-year old professional centre forward! You should make that choice automatically. You have to shoot from there. How can you score goals if you’re scared to miss?

At one point Song could not bring the ball down at his third attempt. Was this top athlete so jetlegged from being in the Ukraine three days ago? Song roams so far forward these days that he’s become a wrestler. If he can't beat his man, he grapples with him and throws him on the ground. He makes me laugh in almost every game.
 
Jack Wilshere’s tackling was bold and effective.

But Walcott miscued as he tried to cross, took too many touches, disappeared for spells, had crosses blocked at source.

Newcastle centreback Mike Williamson is the Portsmouth reserve defender I saw at Barnet  when Pompey beat Arsenal's kids 2-0. Portsmouth had two big centrebacks who were mobile and made tackles and won headers. Williamson, an English journeyman, stopped Arsenal's kids from scoring at Barnet, and here he was at the Emirates  stopping Chamakh, Walcott, Nasri, Fabregas and Arshavin from scoring

In 45, Sagna fouled Gutierrez, Joey Barton measured a diagonal free-kick, and Fabianksi came out and stopped and then made a limp jump. Utterly unconvincing. He should punch that ball. Big Andy Carroll got up first and headed comfortably into an empty net for the only goal of the game..

Fabianski should not come out and stop! And he should not try to catch that ball. There are two types of goalkeeping error. An error of technique is where the keeper tries to do something and gets it wrong. An error of judgement is where he should have decided to do something else that was safer.

Second half, Wilshere was strategic, directing operations from centrefield. When his cute pass found Chamakh’s run, Walcott interrupted to smash a shot against the face of the crossbar. At least he wasn’t scared to shoot.

Chamakh had a wretchedly peripheral game. Wenger took him off and brought on Robin van Persie, who hasn’t played since August 28. He had a couple of good touches, nothing more.

After an hour the game became a siege but Newcastle were very resilient and organised, even though they didn't ｃ ｒｅａｔｅ much.

After 73 minutes, Wenger took off his best player, Wilshere, and put on Bendtner, a big lump who did nothing.

Arshavin hit a superb crossfield pass to Fabregas.  then produced a killer cross which Fabregas met with diving header straight at Tim Krul.

Koscielny won lots of tackles but when lively striker Nile Ranger was beating him on the touchline in 92 minutes, the defender fouled the substitute. Mike Dean gave Koscielny a red card.

This was Newcastle’s first win at Arsenal since 2001.

They were had a good, practical shape, were able to play to their strengths, and not afraid to make ten-yard passes out from the back, which they did very well at times.  As well as playing with more collective passion than Arsenal, they also played with more intelligence and more variation. Well done to manager Chris Hughton, one of the good guys of football.

BOTTOM LINE?

Wenger rewards failure and mediocrity. He keeps telling ordinary players that they're good. Cheikh Tiote, the unheralded 24-year old Ivorian who dominated Fabregas, is better than Song, Denilson and Diaby put together. We're now being told that Clichy will be offered a new five-year contract.!!

For the last four years, Arsenal fans have been paying millions of ££££££££££££££ every week to watch a team without a goalkeeper.

And the team always finished in the top four. What would Arsenal have done WITH a goalkeeper? Remember what a difference Jens Lehmann made?  He came for crosses and shouted at his defenders. From day one in pre-season, against Celtic and Rangers, Lehmann changed the team and made the Invincibles possible and made Paris possible.

Arsenal are the team that never shouts. Peter Schmeichel screamed foul abuse at Steve Bruce for years. But they were good friends and lived across the street from each other.

It's time for Wenger to own up. Play Szczesny at Wolves. And tell this shower that they owe the fans a performance. I predicted that November’s eight games would be harder. Two November games so far, two defeats. Three mistakes, three goals : Eboue, Clichy and Fabianski.

Football is always, always, always a game of sequences and that’s why I never bet on a team that hasn’t won its last match. Winning generates victories, defeat can spiral into failure, so this team has to make a statement soon. Arsenal needs to go to Wolves and beat them 3-0. Players must stand up and be counted. Otherwise they'll be eaten alive at Goodison.

Jack, Kos and Nasri were good against Newcastle. The other eight were not.

If you’re a manager, that’s a very bad percentage.

Nov 8, 2010