Result: Arsenal 3 – 0 Newcastle United
Competition: Premier League
Date: 11 December 2021
Venue: The Emirates Stadium
Arsenal: Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Partey, Xhaka, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Lacazette
Subs: Okonkwo, Cedric, Holding, Tavares, Sambi, Maitland-Niles, Pepe, Nketiah, Smith Rowe
A match that threatened to be another banana slip for Arsenal proved to be the scene of one of the team’s best performance of the season.
Lacazette scored the first goal against the run of play with a lovely built up goal from the back while Odegaard doubled the lead minutes later from a simple header. Gabriel rounded up a dominant second half display with a goal from a corner as Arsenal got back to winning ways.
Pre-Match
Arsenal’s attempt to halt their two game losing run was met with a further hurdle as captain, Aubameyang, was omitted from the squad due to a “disciplinary breach”.
Lacazette took the captain’s armband and his spot as the lead forward and was supported by Odegaard, Saka and Martinelli. Despite only returning from a major injury, Xhaka made his second consecutive appearance in days alongside Partey in midfield.
Tierney kept his spot at left back alongside the regular defence of Gabriel, White, Tomiyasu and Ramsdale.
First Half
Arsenal looked eager to please the crowd from the start of the game. Lacazette and Odegaard were bright with their early exchanges but the team struggled to string passes through the Southampton press.
That over-eagerness was personified in Gabriel who earned a yellow on the second minute for a reckless tackle and, just minutes later, was responsible for an errant pass out from the back straight to an opponent deep in our half.
Southampton however were energetic. They cut out Arsenal’s passing lanes and penned the home side back for the first 20 minutes. The highlight of it was enterprising run through the Arsenal defence by Armstrong whose low strike was saved well by Ramsdale.
The longer the game went, the more nervous Arsenal became in possession, especially when the defenders were insistent on passing out from the back amidst the intense Southampton press.
However, all that intricate passing came to fruition on the 21st minute. The team passed through the right side of the pitch with Saka driving the ball from the right wing into the penalty box. The youngster centred the ball for Lacazette who calmly slotted in from several yards to the relief of the home crowd. 1-0 Arsenal
Arsenal have been meek after they’ve gone ahead in recent games but the Gunners looked to have learnt their lesson and turned the screw on Southampton.
Tierney had a couple of chances to cross from the left side of the penalty box with Southampton laxed in their defending. He eventually looped the ball towards the centre and Odegaard leaped and headed the ball in unchallenged. A gift from a very static Saints defence. 2-0 Arsenal
Arsenal had to hold strong against Southampton’s spirited attacks but the away side’s defence was very poor and they panicked every time Arsenal countered. With slightly better finishing, Lacazette and Saka could have added to the tally as the first half ended with Arsenal in a comfortable lead.
Not too bad considering that Partey has been anonymous and Xhaka looked rusty on the ball within that first 45 minutes.
Second Half
Southampton pushed harder to get back into the game but Arsenal were more confident in containing threats, winning the ball and setting up the counter attack.
A player who fed on this confidene was Gabriel who shook off his rocky first half start. Imperious in the tackles and almost impossible to contain when attacking set pieces, he had a goal ruled out for offside from a corner kick on the 57th minute.
That was a warning sign for Southampton as he made no mistake with his second attempt. Arsenal were now up 3-0
Arsenal were playing with a swagger we have not seen in ages. They were not keen to rest and passed through towards Southampton’s goal with confidence. Saka and Martinelli were unlucky with their attempts, hitting the upright with long range strikes that should have been the cherry on the cake.
The Gunners need only be on cruise control for the rest of the game as Sambi, Holding and Pepe got a run out to close the game.
A very welcome result and performance for Arteta that took the attention away from the Aubameyang omission and hopefully, the start of another 10-game unbeaten run. One can hope.
Good result! Southampton were pretty poor, though they had more shots on target than us! My friend who supports them said: We will concede at least one poor goal and won’t score more than one goal ourselves.
I was enjoying the 2nd half and thought to myself “are we good, or are they just really bad”.
Lovely first goal. Ramsdale and White’s pass made that goal.
Anybody else think a front 4 of Saka, The Smith, Odegaard and Martinelli should be given a few games to see what they can do? Martinelli has to be a starter in this team
This could be the future but personally I don’t see Martinelli as a first striker that he will be in-between the giants. He is better face on goal doing penetrating runs
Good win. Without Auba, we can win with quite a large goal margin
Do the downvoters think Auba is awesome?
Better performance from Partey, today. And what a find Tomiyasu is. So solid
Tomiyasu is so easy to love, plays with insane dedication and character for 90 minutes every game.
Exactly. His attitude is a plus.
I think the same can be said of Gabriel.
Yup… my favorite of the current crop
Everybody talking about Tierney but for me, Gabriel should be a future captain
Also is it just me, or is he looking much more expressive going forward compared to how he played at the start of the season? And it goes unnoticed because he’s not the flashiest player, but he’s got to be a candidate for our most technically secure player on the pitch too. Early days, but at present last Summer looks like being our best transfer window in years.
It’s our best transfer window in years, yet it’s crazy how many Arsenal fans still want Arteta out just 3 months after recruiting this new group of players.
Coaching us about what you do with the talent which is completely separate from bringing it in – it’s also not clear how Edu/Arteta function in terms of spotting and bringing in talent.
Yeah a managers job is recruitment, coaching, tactics, substitutions, man management, media duties.
maybe more, so far we know from anecdotal evidence he can coach and do transfers, the rest is still under scrutiny.
Yeah he seems more confident attacking, quickly becoming one of my favorite players in this team
I was just thinking the same about Tomiyasu. I haven’t been able to watch much Arsenal this season because of time zone differences (I live in Japan) but it was great to see him playing so confidently today
Best overall performance of the season?
Odegaard MOTM. Ramsdale = Ramsdale. 3 players score; 2 others hit the post. Mikel even got the subs just right. Basically the opposite of the Everton game — just what was needed.
More of this would be nice.
NLD and Villa were also up there
Agreed. I’d throw in the 1st half away to Leicester also
Good win after the recent disappointment and 3 in 3 for Odegaard. 👏
Look out Emil, Ode is coming for you in the goal scoring race.
So good to have this kind of competition!
Great win but still think until we change our style of play the ceiling on this team remains Europa League which is disappointing given the talent level. We’ll have some great wins mixed in with some bad losses, but the stats say we’re still the same as the past 2 years – a mid table team
Agreed, it’s hard to argue with a 3-0 win but the first 20 min were terrible, it felt like a repeat of Everton. Laca’s goal was a pinpoint counter attack that only just came off. Beautiful move but it required perfection from 5 or 6 different players, it’s not a reliable way of scoring goals. Odegaard’s was a bit of a fluke. And Gabriel’s while a nice goal was helped by atrocious goalkeeping and defending. Against a better team we’d still have struggled mightily. (This could be me playing devil’s advocate to steel myself for the next Everton type game,… Read more »
It’s pretty common for one of the goals in a big win to be “a bit of a fluke,” especially when the fluke is caused by someone being in the right place.
We are currently one point off 4th mate
Similar to last year there are the top 3 and everyone else. 4th – 10th are relatively tightly clustered. Our stats indicate that we are tracking the same type of league return as last year, largely based on our now 2 plus year inability to create chances. Unless something materially changes in that regard the stats are pretty clear where we will end up.
Weird, I thought we scored three goals today.
“Stats” like XG? Arsenal’s XG in this match was 1.8; only need a working set of eyeballs to see we could easily have had 5 or 6. You can keep those stats.
Yeah but west ham, manure and spu*s have games in hand, we’re as close to 4th as we are to 8th. Hopefully they drop some points this weekend
This was certainly a much better performance than we’ve seen recently.
Then again, Southampton was awful.
Still waiting for that good performance against a good team.
Arsenal 3-1 Sp*ds?
I believe he said good team, not shit team.
Good team not shit teams
Good team not a Sh*t team!
He said a good team.
That Sp*rs team was quite possibly the worst team we’ve played all season.
They looked a complete shambles and sure enough, their shit manager was fired soon afterwards.
1st goal brilliant
Good win. Next game please.
Rammy is the GOAT
Comfortable win against a very limited Southampton side. Good to see Arsenal looking a bit more dynamic and keeping a clean sheet.
Great result and a decent performance after the break, but wow was I willing that ball across the line for the fourth goal. For a ten minute spell there in the second half, it felt like we could have a dozen.
We havn’t had a less than minus goal difference since the 22nd minute of the season and I really wanted that to change today as we turned the screw. Well done lads, we all needed that win.
When Partey was winding up to rifle that shot from outside the box in the second half, I really thought he was going to bulge the back of the net.
Not.
This belief was based off of what exactly? Sorry.
Sounded like the Arsenal crowd were yelling “Shoot!” Things that only happen at 3-0 up…
He still would have taken a shot if it was 0-0!
Top Partey trolling on the part of the crowd!!
I think he needs to stop trying to finesse it into the top corner and just put his foot through it
Or he could just permanently hang up his shooting boots
Arsenal has a pretty decent squad. With a few tactical tweaks, this team can be world beaters.
There are too many people on this planet for 23 men to beat.
Great win, the youngsters really showed up today. I think that Martenelli has earned himself a spot in the starting lineup, he was sprinting all game along, and was setting up chances
Martinelli is one fine player but I guess we all know that. I only wonder why we’ve not seen him all these while.
Arteta is finally taking some lessons on subs. Good.
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
after the third goal i thought how incredibly different our outlook would be if we had won 1:0 or 2:1 at everton.
Even a draw there would have calmed things down a bit. The over-reaction this week was painful.
I hope the result doesn’t mask the first 15 minutes. We were bloody awful, worse than vs Utd or Everton.
that said we came into the game and finished it looking great.
I didn’t realise Sam I was 1 yellow away from a ban, so potentially a reason why he was dropped for xhaka?
Sorry, you hope THE RESULT doesn’t mask the first FIFTEEN MINUTES? Heaven forbid we care more about the entirety of the game, and a 3-0 win, than a slightly shaky start.
We just got a 3-0 win, hitting the post twice and with another chalked off, and you are still grasping desperately for something to be negative about.
We’ve just become skeptical after so many false dawns.
It’s not desperate grasping, it is an honest observation on what we can improve.
im suggesting we don’t forget about it, and work to have a performance like the following 70-75 minutes.
it’s like you read my comment until the first full stop then raged away 😂
I believe that rule ‘resets’ after the 19th Premier League game, so after Norwich on Boxing Day.
29th of December I read looking it up after hearing the stat from the commentary team. My thinking was Arteta trying to get xhaka up to speed for an on in jan whilst simultaneously lowering the risk of sambi picking up another yellow this month?
So he left him out for 2 games to avoid a 1 game suspension?
possibly? Doesn’t want his hands forced, idk I’m trying to figure out why our best dm during our run was dropped!
It doesn’t make sense him not playing, I would agree with you that he’s already better than anyone else we have in midfield.
Looking forward to the next game already.
That performance sets us up very nicely indeed for West Ham.
ESR has to start in that one to add more fluidity to attack. Suspect it will be Martinelli that will make way, though he has done very well the last few weeks.
Yeah, I’d like to see martinelli up front with esr, odegaard and saka behind, but I don’t see Arteta leaving Laca or Auba (when he’s not grounded) out
Much better, but you can just see how this could have gone against a better team. The passing is just so unreliable for Arteta’s idea of a possession based team.
If they can do it against West Ham, that would be a clearer indication.
Some really nice football despite terrible start, shame about the posts though. Would love to see us winning 4-0 or 5-0.
Whatever the tactics were for the first 20 min, should be analyzed and never repeated again. After that we moved the ball much better and faster. I have also noticed almost every time we attack, we go from the sides and not from the middle as we used to. We have become way too predictable going to our left/right back every time. We need a better fluid link in central mid with the attack.
Partey and Xhaka have not been good at receiving and starting moves, I’d like to see Sambi ad une of the starting midfielders, he’s IMO the best at turning and carrying the ball through de middle. In theory Partey should do that but I think he looks scared, maybe because he’s been a bit crap recently
I thought Partey grew into the game today and was pretty good. He pushed through the midfield with real menace on a couple of occasions. I get the feeling he’s really a confidence player and has an enviable ability to shrug off and/or just step through tackles when he’s on song.
More of that please Thomas…
Arteta In 😜
Tomiyaso is rock solid in defence and his passing is underrated. He often makes the perfect decision. Also, when was the last time Saka had to track back? I’m glad the crowd are starting to show their appreciation for him now.
Very close to scoring a goal today too, took a great sliding block from the defender to stop him from scoring.
Say what you will about Xhaka, but that dude is the bionic man. Two full (did he play the entirety vs. Everton?) games in a week after returning from a knee injury? That’s crazy.
The x-man is Wolverine bro!
He was good. Replaced by Sambi in the 80 something minute.
Crazy is that he is still playing for us.
Crazy for different reasons, but yeah.
Nice to be reminded why Pepe is not playing
You know the answer? Nice. Please explain why Nketiah is playing over Pepe
Because it’s all about winning this season not worrying about next. Who is to say that Auba or Pepe lasts longer than Nketiah 🤷🏻♂️
Mindless comment…
Just a note on the 2nd goal.
Watch the replay and keep an eye on Martinelli’s movement. He did a fantastic job blocking off the defender to leave Odegard the free header.
I love contributions like that. They very rarely get picked up, but demonstrate great awareness and willingness to help the team
I noticed this too! I thought Gabi was selfish in the Everton game where he could have passed, but doesn’t seem like it’s a trait of his, just a situational occurrence of a striker wanting to score (madness I know!)
That was impressive
The game shows that we got a bunch of very talented players and the trasnfers before the season have been excellent. The squad now lack a top class striker and an genuine asshole in midfield scaring opposition and own players equally. Rasmdale the purchase of the decade and Tomi I like more and more,he’s a really good player. Odegaard, let him get the ball and he’ll create miracles. Arteta : you can’t control the game from the sideline. All your waving and pointing just show that we have a tactically unsecure manager who hasn’t been able to do the work… Read more »
Odegaard getting in the box and getting his reward!
Has Arteta learnt with the substitutions made today the ones he should have made in the Everton game?
Laca calmly slotted in from several yards? He absolutely smacked a peach into the top corner!
A good win and an encouraging performance from Martinelli. Am surprised how the Manager can keep a player like that on the bench in a team with such a poor attack.
Ok then could you tell me how Auba feels about the game? 😁
Shit…replied to the wrong story. Commence the downvotes!
Such a frustrating team, so inconsistent.
Oh well, at least it’s better to be shit 50% of the time than 100%!!!
Good solid performance today. Everyone played fairly well. Standouts were the usuals, Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, Saka, with Tierney, Marinelli, and Odegaard also doing well. It was solid but it will not be enough to beat West Ham. We will have to up the intensity and the technical sharpness from the start in order to win on Wednesday.
Decent win. did not have sufficient fluency first half but some good threatening moves either with direct balls cutting thru or intricate play out form the back (which led to the first goal) but I felt that was also massive risk considering conditions. Fortunately this time, it played out. Fullbacks heavily involved with Tomiyasu having a good game and Tierney getting up the left. Odegaard seems to me like Ramsey, pops up for goals (like when he had his loan spell with Sevilla) Great to see Martinelli involved today. Also excellent distribution from the excellent Ramsdale. Like the almost assist… Read more »
Honest to god if I see Auba back in the team anytime soon I will fucking lose it. So much better with Laca in the team, his link up play with Martinelli and Saka is way better. I still think our defence is fairly solid now, minus the brain farts that we continue to do, but if Tomy, Gabriel, White and Tierney can stay fit and cut out the mistakes they are very good. The problem is in front of them now. Both Xhaka and Partey are average. Partey was meant to be the step up from Xhaka but has… Read more »
Auba’s style just doesn’t suit the system we are playing – sometimes he makes it work (eg Spurs) but all too often his touch lets him down and he can’t link the way laca does (or Giroud would have). I’d love martinelli to be the central striker but I’m not he’s physically up to the role at the moment, and his touch with his back to goal is still sometimes auba like.