Arsenal 0 Newcastle 1:ARSENE WENGER declared before this game that Arsenal's home form would be vital for their title challenge. More displays like this and a more apt word would be fatal.
Arsenal only lost twice at the Emirates last season but already in this campaign two black-and-white clad visitors have made off with deserved victories. After the defeat by West Bromwich Albion in September Wenger accused his side of complacency and this time, although he said his team were unlucky, he admitted that his players had been below par and revealed he was increasingly worried by his team’s inability to control their turf.
“The home form is a concern because even against Birmingham and West Ham they were struggling wins,” he said. “Everybody plays tight here. When we are not in full form we have problems playing through the lines.
“It’s all right when we score the first goal but as long as they can sit deep we have problems playing through them if we are not at full power.”
Arsenal were far from full power against Newcastle, who enjoyed more possession than their hosts. That feat was attributable to the excellence of Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan and, especially, Cheikh Tiote, but also to Arsenal’s uncharacteristic lethargy and sloppiness.
Those shortcomings were evident from the outset, as in the early minutes both Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna surrendered the ball on the edge of their own area and were relieved to see the subsequent Newcastle crosses cleared. Arsenal’s touch and passing was awry, and so too was their tackling – Clichy and Cesc Fabregas were booked for ugly challenges.
If all that was unusual for Arsenal, the decisive goal came from a failing that is all too familiar. Lukasz Fabianski’s solidity recently had heightened Arsenal fans’ hopes that their goalkeeping problems had been resolved but in the 44th minute the Pole punctured that optimism by wandering aimlessly off his line and punching at the clouds as Andy Carroll nodded Barton’s free-kick into the net. Wenger was lenient in his appraisal of the keeper. “It was not a technical mistake, it was a problem of timing and maybe he thought he would not be challenged,” said Wenger.
Carroll and his team-mates ran to the sideline to celebrate with Chris Hughton, again highlighting their eagerness to see the manager awarded a long-term contract from the club’s owners. “All I can do is keep winning,” said Hughton.
The goal may have come from Newcastle’s first shot on target but it was not undeserved. The visitors had zipped the ball about tidily up till then, forcing Arsenal to play on the counterattack. Only occasionally did the hosts come close to penetrating and never through Marouane Chamakh, on whom many moves foundered because of his uncharacteristically shoddy control.
Fabregas was out of sorts too but inevitably he was involved in the few threats Arsenal did muster. It was his 25-yard free-kick that took a nick off Carroll before bouncing off the bar in the 13th minute, and moments before Newcastle’s goal he had teed up Samir Nasri for a fierce shot from 18 yards that brought a superb one-handed save from Tim Krul.
The start of the second half brought fleeting Arsenal pressure and Theo Walcott struck the bar in the 48th minute with a curling shot after a smart through-ball from Jack Wilshere. The Arsenal storm soon passed, however. In search of stimulus, Wenger turned to Robin van Persie but the Dutchman, who had been out for more than two months with an ankle injury, was unable to make any impact.
It was another substitute, Andrey Arshavin, who came closest to carving out an equaliser, dashing to the byline in the 82nd minute before crossing to Fabregas, who aimed his diving header straight at Krul. There was no late battering for Newcastle to endure. Instead, in stoppage time the visitors exposed another recurring Arsenal problem – defensive flimsiness.
The Newcastle substitute Nile Ranger outmuscled Laurent Koscielny and began to lope towards the box when the centreback took him down in desperation. The referee Mike Dean flourished the red card, Koscielny’s second of the season. “It was not a goalscoring opportunity and he was not the last man because Squillaci was covering,” said Wenger.
The defeat capped an unhappy weekend for Wenger, who had to suffer seeing salacious gossip about his private life in the tabloids.
The manager said that to comment on that would be to break a vow he took when he first came to England, when slanderous stories gave rise to obnoxious terrace chants. “I arrived 14 years ago and you know what happened and I promised myself I would never comment on my private life any more.” Guardian Service
