Arsenal: Raya, Partey, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Rice, Merino, Trossard, Martinelli, Saka, Havertz
Subs: Neto, White, Kiwior, Zinchenko, Lewis-Skelly, Jorginho, Nwaneri, Jesus, Sterling
Arsenal lost further ground on their title rivals after they were beaten 1-0 by Newcastle at St James’ Park on Saturday, following a first half goal from Alexander Isak.
Mikel Arteta reverted back to the starting eleven that drew against Liverpool last weekend, after making eight changes against Preston for the 3-0 Carabao Cup win on Wednesday.
There was good news on the injury front with Gabriel deemed fit enough to start, while Ben White featured on the bench after struggling with a ‘joint issue’ over the past week.
It was an intense opening ten minutes from both sides who were quick to press and play long where possible, but Newcastle took the lead with their first shot of the game through Alexander Isak.
Isak initially played the ball wide to Anthony Gordon who played a brilliant first time cross back to the Swede, who then found himself between the Arsenal centre backs and powered his header past Raya. 1-0.
Arteta’s men were rocked at that point and Newcastle were finding gaps in transition, but also finding it too easy to play through the press which seemed messy and unorganised – the exact opposite of what we’ve come to expect from this side.
However, Arsenal did have the next big chance and it fell to Mikel Merino who reacted quickest to some penalty box pinball but his goalbound effort was blocked on the line by Lewis Hall.
A frustrating first half was compounded by Gabriel Martinelli being pulled aside after being on the end of a blatantly wrong throw-in decision, before Bruno Guimaraes won a free kick after kicking Merino and writhing around in pain on the floor.
Newcastle were revved up on the pitch and in the stands, and you could feel Arsenal losing their grip on this game heading towards half time.
They didn’t look right tactically with Havertz pulling far too wide, their press being bypassed and creativity was sorely lacking in midfield. There was lots for Arteta to think about during the break.
Less than a minute into the second half, Newcastle almost doubled their lead after Gordon was given too much space again before playing Joe Willock through, but his effort was saved comfortably by Raya under pressure from William Saliba.
There was a half chance for Leandro Trossard moments later after he was played through by Martinelli but receiving the ball off-balance, his touch was heavy and Dan Burn was able to intervene in front of goal.
With half an hour to play, Arteta attempted to change things with Ethan Nwaneri and Oleksandr Zinchenko both coming on, replacing Merino and Martinelli who both struggled down the left hand side.
Declan Rice was close to equalising after driving into the Newcastle box and seeing his deflected shot trickle just past the post, which was actually the visitors’ first shot of the second half on 64 minutes.
White and Gabriel Jesus were also introduced with 20 minutes to play with Arsenal showing little signs of changing the game up until that point.
As the minutes ticked away for the Gunners, they pushed and probed for an equaliser but showed no signs of testing Nick Pope in goal or creating anything that wasn’t centred around set pieces or crosses.
Deep into injury time, there was a golden opportunity for Rice to rescue a point after being found at the back post by a trademark Saka cross, but somehow headed wide from six yards which summed up their performance.
This was a hugely disappointing day for Arsenal against a Newcastle side who executed their plan well, but showed nothing close to matching them physically, tactically, or showing enough themselves to break them down.
It’s possible that by the end of this weekend, Arteta’s men could be seven and eight points behind Liverpool and Manchester City respectively, which doesn’t make for good reading at the start of November.
Three Premier League games without a win and the fixture schedule isn’t getting any easier – something needs to change.
League is gone now. Just about ensuring we get top four and go hard for the champions league.
Easy with hindsight but letting both Smith Rowe & Vieira go in the summer was a bit of a mistake.
Jesus is dead weight, injuries have wrecked him.
Need a creative midfielder, winger and striker badly.
I rechecked the score that 80th minute. Arsenal were down 1-0, and there was no one in the box, no movement past Saka by any full back.
It would have been better to lose 3-0 and put in some effort to score a goal, rather than this turd
ESR and Vieira keeping getting better in absence, but we had plenty of stale performances with them in the team. I don’t think either would’ve affected the game today, and I don’t think either would make us better right now. Particularly Vieira.
We were a couple points off of City last with what we had, and we’ve retooled so much with our LB and midfield experiments, plus the injuries, that we have regressed. Will it gel? It’s hard to see it until MO is back, White is back playing 90s, Merino can play the left 8, and Rice can push TP to the bench as the 6. It still may not gel for a year. I can like Timber and Merino and TP and Calafiori as players but still struggle to see if we are better with them getting so many minutes… Read more »
While the bent refs have done their bit to chew up our chances of winning the PL this season we’ll do the rest from here.
That was fucking shit! Utter waste or my life!
Our concentration of refs, who agreeably have been poor, masks how underwhelming this season has been especially the last 2 months!
Fancy that the season where City lose Rodri for a calendar year we have suddenly become stale. Absolutely galling.
We are a bit stale without MO yes, we coped well at first but that’s no longer the case. Main problem is we’re conceding too many goals. Every match the back 4 changes. The full backs are a big weakness right now, both defending and attacking. Reckon things are going to worse before they get better too unfortunately.
Thing is we continue with injury prone players who can’t be relied upon and then the one who are more robust are over worked, and get injured too. We have been unlucky with injuries but we needed to fix things with Tomi, Zinc.
I feel like we’ve been found out a bit. Without Odegaard we are pretty one dimensional and, although it worked for a little bit, we are now pretty predictable. Bournemouth and Newcastle were both able to nullify us pretty comfortably. I can’t help but feel Nwaneri is the antidote to this as he has that unpredictability and that maestro vibe, like Odegaard. But maybe that’s putting too much on his young shoulders. I also am not loving Merino / Rice at all at present. Far too static. Not enough movement and progressive passing. Well, I think we can safely forget… Read more »
Spot on, since he has tried to accommodate merino in league, in terms of starting, we have looked even worse. That’s not knocking him, he is obviously strong physically and good in the air but he will need time. He should have been starting on the bench in my view until he really picks up the pace and intensity of prem (I know many point out he can’t do that unless he plays a lot, but you know what I mean). He cannot keep playing partey as right back, he has been out strongest midfielder this season. Even though we… Read more »
Think City gave us chances in the last 2 seasons too. And this season as you say, without Rodri, we should have got to the finish line. But I guess, this club just finds a way to shoot itself on the foot.
You can add pointless international matches to bent refs.
Septic, we just don’t have enough goals to win the big prizes
1) goals were never the issue
2) you cannot score goals if you don’t generate any chance which is where our problem lays at the moment
Games like this make me miss Wenger so much. At least we dominated and played very nicely in the games we lost.
This game is a prime example of boring Arsenal games under Arteta.
goals were not the issue last season, they are this season
We’re just too cautious. We don’t attempt or receive the ball in tight spaces for fear of losing it, we can’t play through the lines. Remember when we were top of ‘touches in the box’ stats, we’ve completely lost our way.
We should be more cautious, we are letting in far too many goals
We should be less cautious because of the quality of and investment in the platform of the back six. If we can’t be on the front foot constantly with this roster construction then something is really wrong.
Just awful, no one gets more than a 6 and that’s being generous. How can we be so pedestrian in possession when we are losing! Battle for top 4 is truly on.
TP5 absolutely deserves an 8, if we’d won that game we’d be talking about how well he played. The caveat of course is it’s easier to control a game when the opposition is defending a lead. But that was a really good performance from him and just about no-one else.
Not according to blogs but he has set his stall out I guess regarding Partey. I think Hes been our best player so far this season.
When Partey played really well last week against Liverpool, I gave him a high mark. When I thought he played poorly today, I didn’t.
Not a single Arsenal player deserved an 8 today, and that’s a big IF about winning the game. Because very obviously we didn’t.
I will say though, I don’t understand why he wasn’t playing in midfield today with Timber RB and one of Kiwior/MLS on the left.
Kiwior should def have played LB. Very underrated player who has performed a vital role in some of best runs we’ve had under Arteta.
He’s very good as a centre back, has gotten exposed a fair few times as a full back. And MLS is very young and not very strong to play against this physical Newcastle team. I think it was a catch 22 today, start Partey at RB and you weaken our attack but have a strong defense, but start Kiwi or MLS and we could’ve perhaps scored two goals but conceded three. Injuries have wrecked us.
Absolutely. That’s on the coach and his distortion of the team dynamics.
A lot of the players today deserve nothing more than 3s and 4s. I think top 4 is the only realistic target now, and how come a defence that was looking world class is looking so leaky?
I would rate Rice 1 for those free kicks. But then he was the only lively one in those last minutes besides Nwaneri
Kudos to Newcastle, really well organized tonight. They took their only chance, we didn’t.
Why we didn’t create more is a different question.
Skip the Inter game, go to Dubai now!
For the first time this season I can say the opponent were the better team and were deserved winners. I thought the referee had a really good game too. There’s no excuses. We’re not quite right at the moment and it’s worrying.
Bournemouth were better as well… generally speaking, we’ve been rubbish this season
I don’t agree that Bournemouth were better than us that day. The game was even until Saliba’s sending off and no team can be expected to play sixty minutes with ten men without suffering.
did not dominate them we didn’t create anything till Saliba was on, maybe without him we would not have gone behind, so we were equal to Bornemouth till Saliba went off. v small consolation
And the worst of it is having to say it about that bunch of oil oppressor whoring cunts.
I think even worse is that if Merino and Dec are more clinical and/or lucky we win this game 2-1.
Looks like the league season is over. Better to focus on cup competitions and top four.
If we can win any two cups and make top 4, it will be a good season.
There’s 28 games to play. Just gotta hang in there until the Dubai winter break
Can agree with he league season being over! Which is such a shame.
If there was a coherent plan for how to create scoring chances, I couldn’t see it. Just a mish-mash of hopeful attempts, mostly going nowhere.
Ødegaard can’t come back soon enough.
Not coherent enough! No urgency! So and lethargic! Miss passess, under passes, over hit passess. No mixing up, no trying long balls! A blueprint of failure.
Our attacking play cannot all depend on one player. Something’s seriously amiss.
Well that was shocking. No desire at all, we did nothing to deserve anything from that game. Our own worst enemy – so sloppy, wasteful, no quality on the ball. Really, really bad. Oof.
More like Drossard today.
He is unfortunately inconsistent.
Impact sub and a dam good one. Ends there
We have the same issue with him and the national team. It feels like he choose his games and this is really frustrating.
He has been woefully out of form for club and country recently.
Needed to be hooked off at half time, in poor form, Ethan should have actually started. 17 yo can, have and do start for big teams.
Not making an excuse for him but being played in the Odegaard role has made him worse than ever.
We got exactly what we deserved in this game, which is zero point.
Absolutely woeful and this sadly marks the end of our title challenge. Arteta needs to stop with this terrorist ball and actually go for it just once. His overly cautious approach has cost us and I fear his and Edu’s reluctance to upgrade the squad in the summer is already coming back to bite us in the arse.
Pains me to say it, but Patrice Evra was right. We’re Netflix.
Patrice Evra’s reactionary clickbait opinion of the week happening to be born out by reality still doesn’t make him a source worth taking note of
I think Evra should save his remarks for his own awful team. Like many ex player, so called pundits, he/they are not worth a light.
Boring, pathetic rubbish.
No creativity, no cutting edge, no passion. Newcastle didn’t even have to get out of first gear to beat us. We did nothing.
The title is gone now: we’re playing for fourth.
Let’s concentrate on the cups.
Some things:
1. Trossard doesn’t deserve a start right now.
2. Nwaneri should start.
3. We miss MO badly.
4. Zinchenko can’t be trusted at the back.
5. Martinellis decision making is really bad at the moment.
6. Bruno G. is a massive cunt.
7. Added time is chosen randomly. 9 min against City when the ball was in play for way longer. Today 5min?!
Corruption at its finest.
Please let’s not talk about officiating or corruption today. The game was well officiated and this is the best refereeing we’ve had all season.
Martinelli is too predictable at the moment. He’s always been I must say. While Trossard does not have Marti’s pace or defensive abilities, he plays better from the left and can score goals.
I know Arteta is trying a lot of combos now because Ode is missing and it has not really worked, we might as well start with Nwaneri from now on..
I was speaking of the man city game.
but what would have been the benefit of having 10 minutes added time today.
6/7 ain’t bad
Given the way we played today we probably won’t score even if we have 20 minutes of added time.
This is one is really disappointing
The team that we are slowly but SURELY evolving into is just not equipped to win a league. There is no attacking attitude at all. These are talented players but half the teams in the league have talented players. Arteta, for some reason, has focused so intensely on the defensive side of the team that we just don’t attack potently. The title is probably not attainable this season anymore because I am sure we’ll be dropping points at a higher rate than City. And with City, what we mostly have is a talent gap. They just have more talented players… Read more »
Ode and Saka’s brilliance have been masking a very average team run by a very average coach
Oh shut up
You just won cxxt of the week. Congrats
Which should have been awarded to Bruno Guimaraes!
You are just being disingenuous
The kind of thing I would expect from a drunk spuds fan on Twitter.
Shut up 10 times!!!
That was rubbish! Slow and ponderous, why can’t we move the ball quickly anymore?
I know he hasn’t been available as much and had a bad season last year, but Partey is needed in midfield.
Yes, should have played timber right back, Kiwior left back and TP midfield (if Ben White was not fit enough to start)
It’s not the loss but the manner of it that pains. We just didn’t try. How much of this horrendous performance was down to the players and Arteta’s tactics is anyone’s guess. But we certainly do need to moderate our expectations this season. We are not ready to win the league. And I dare say that arteta is looking like he’s not the man to do it.
We were ready to win the league last season
Bear in mind that last season we were also really lucky regarding injuries/referring
Awful performance. It feels like Arteta is setting up to try and nick one nil win. Concede and plan goes out of window. Trossard is so poor when he starts. Havertz was on right wing in first half to accommodate Trossard. No creativity what so ever. I think cup will be our best chance this season. Have to face reality.
Trossard was given the Odegaard role which nullifies what he brings to this team. In this reshuffled team it also looks like Harvert has lost his bearing. He has been played as our center forward so far this season and I. The last 2 or 3 games he has also not showed up. While there is a lot of concern about Trossard starting I think his major undoing is that most of the games this s eason he has started in the Odegaard role and he has failed woefully at playing that role.
Says it all when the highlight of the entire game was Nwaneri doing a nice pirouette in the 90th minute to retain more possession we did absolutely fuck all with. Can’t believe we all wasted two hours on that shit. For the first time this season, there’s no contentious refereeing moments to go with a discussion around our dropped points. We were just a shadow of ourselves all over the pitch. Embarrassing stuff.
Baffling how poor we were today, more or less the same team that did a decent enough job against Liverpool. Ponderous, passive, pedestrian.
Yeah, I thought we were decent against Liverpool. I mean we beat them really didn’t we? But today and Bournemouth were terrible. Injuries and suspensions have stopped us building any kind of momentum or form.
The fight for the fourth place trophy is on and to be honest it doesn’t look good. We are slow without any creativity and rely on Saka to get anything from a game. I don’t know what Arteta are thinking but he needs to get the Moyes head out of his arse and stop being afraid of losing.
garbage, sadly!
Early season setbacks knocked the stuffing out of Arsenal and we got what we deserved today. Unless results go our way later, you have to think the title is gone and Europe is the best opportunity for success.
i could not watch the match but the two phrases that were repeated about Arsenal were ‘pedestrian’ and ‘without conviction’.
It seems that we have to be concerned once again since Wenger about which team will turn up if at all. Not turning up when the pay is admittedly mediocre is so annoying and frustrating and begs the question; how much do they need to turn up?
I accept defeat very readily when the team leave everything on the pitch but today? I think not.
You are right blogs. Something does need to change, another trip to dubai perhaps?
Worst performance since the last worst performance, whichever that was. It can’t just be Odegaard missing, why this team now looks so average
Just the start of November and we already need a miracle to win the league, another wasted opportunity? How long will players like Saliba and Saka take this when Madrid and co come calling?
Pedestrian football for the sake of control and then ironically we have no control, Marti and Trossard should not have not come on in the second half, abysmal performance. Need something different upfront, when things not going well.
Arteta made a big mistake by not strengthening our attack. We looked completely out of ideas today. Its already a big gap after just 10 games, hope the team can turn things around soon.
It feels that our title ambitions are shoot down early in the campaign this year. We miss Martin big time in these games, but the rest should have the quality to win this one.
But our achilles heel is the way we play,slow,to many sideways passes and unnecessary dribbles when a pass or shot is the right choice.
We do need to many changes to convert to goals,Liverpool and City dom’t.
We are better than Liverpool, don’t go building them up
Dreadful performance, we are desperate for Marty to come back as creatively we offer nothing.
So many poor performances today and falling a long way back from the front two almost heading out of the race before Christmas.
Almost? Lol we are out! City is getting 5 in a row. Only 1 team has ever come back from 8 points down to win it and that was in a 42 game season.
We’d have to win every game remaining and hope city lose 3 or draw 4 games.
At least now I can watch games and no longer stress so much
Odegaard’s most natural replacement is Ethan, or is he not? With Odegaard missing so many matches with injury and with Trossard form in the last few weeks, I can’t get my head around why has Ethan not started a Prem match till now?
I try to stay positive but that’s that for the title any were going to have a massive fight for the top 4 at this rate. No creativity at all, it’s not acceptable to just pin it on the loss of Odegaard. Arteta, the coaching staff and the players really need to step it up now because that was yet another terrible performance going forward; If a team is organised defensively there is nothing we can seem to do about it, at no point did I feel we’d score today. We could have played another full 90 and not scored.
100% manager’s fault. He knew how they would play but had zero solutions except those corners. Some players played like they just had had a party yesterday.
We desperately miss Martin Ødegaard‘s creativity in this game, New Castle’s low block defense against us was formidable and it was exactly what we did in the City game but City got lucky with the 2nd goal
62% possession, 32 touches in Newcastle’s box, one (1!) shot on goal. Unacceptable. Arteta seems to have no idea what to do without Odegaard.
We desperately missed Martin Ødegaard‘s creativity in this game, New Castle’s low block defense against us was formidable and it was exactly what we did in the City game but City got lucky with the 2nd goal
Arteta will win nothing with Arsenal, clueless and useless manager.
Looked on the cusp of greatness. Had one obvious deficiency. Didn’t address it through caution. Momentum lost. This is Arsenal.
This was probably the most toothless performance I have seen from Arsenal in a long time. Why start Partey over White at right back? Merino hasn’t taken the world by storm exactly and we were just starting to see Partey getting back to his old self in midfield. What with the obsession? Just ease the player in. Trossard should just be used as a super sub at this point. This was all on Mikel Arteta. The season’s over and we are not even into December. Let’s not give the excuse about our captain being injured. City have gone longer spells… Read more »
Declan rice is useless l did not want to admit it. The worst player not even worth putting on Patrick Viera’s boots
he’s been off, for a couple of games these season.
This is the first time in a long long time that I’ve been angry at our performance. I’ve been upset at results and pissed off previously but my feeling today is very different. I’m trying not to think about how much more unlikely it has made winning the title as spending the next 6 and-a-half months with a part of my brain believing the chance has gone makes me want to cry.
Party played well at RB but what a waste. It’s not the same as White helping Saka down that side. Trossard starting doesn’t seem to work and it looked like we were set up to nick it and once we went down we couldn’t change the lethargy that had set in. Newcastle decided to bring on their A game aswell which often happens. We don’t look good away from home this season.
i agree, but the solution is not playing white at RB, is if white is not fit, he will not have the strength to up and down the pitch
I hope the Partey at RB experiment is truly over. Thomas himself was fine. But tactically, a disaster.
Takes away our best midfielder and the only one who can control the game. Takes away any threat of overlap which totally isolates Saka against 2, sometimes 3 men.
The arrogance to think we don’t need a striker was always going to make us pay
Pep upgraded to Haaland even after winning multiple titles for a reason
Well I think that proves that the players pre-match communal spliff needs to be cancelled.
Last 5 minutes summed it all up, the game and the season
Losing with minutes nearly up and the back line are dithering and passing slowly amongst themselves in our half.
The Rice misses what should have been a sitter.
We play too slow, too predictable , horrid negative football that relays on Saka and Odegaard for a genius flourish
It’s horrid football regardless of who is missing, that’s excuses, the coaching is the problem
Well, that was shite. At least a loss without any controversy though, thoroughly deserved. Game can be summed up in “missed pass” – “poor touch” – “free kick to Ewcastle”. Snorefest. Too early for a trip to Dubai?
Anyways.. Chin up, let’s turn things around with a w @ Inter and Chelski. We’ll be back stronger.
That was like watching the last days of Unai. Shit sandwich.
I felt no urgency as the game wore on and got more and more dreary. The ref was fine we have no excuse. If all the teams around us win their next game we’ll be 7th with a quarter of the season done. We aren’t winning the title, not without an incredible run and other teams struggling.