Newcastle players got angry at Arsenal’s ‘game management’ in St James park win

Admin Pat

12 months ago

Arsenal surprised everyone by getting an emphatic 2-0 win at St. James Park at the weekend, becoming only the second team after Liverpool to come away with three points from Newcastle, but it was fully deserved revenge after last year’s miserable defeat at the same venue.

Also, in the reverse fixture at the Emirates, Newcastle stole a point from a bore-draw with the ball actually being in play for the least anout of time than any other game in the EPL this season.

So there were a few raised eyebrows after Arsenal’s win, when Eddie Howe accused the Gunners of considerable time-wasting during the game, and it seems many of the Toon players were also very angry at our tactics. Howe told the Northern Echo: “It was frustrating from our perspective. We wanted the ball the play, we wanted to find our rhythm. It was very stop-start.

“That was suiting, of course, the away team. As the home team, you want the ball in play, so it was frustrating in that sense for us, definitely.

“They managed the game well from their perspective. They slowed it down, lots of breaks in play, frustrating for us. Naturally we wanted the ball in play more especially when you are chasing the game.”

But, according to the Asenal legend Martin Keown, Arsenal were simply playing Newcastle at their own game, but doing it better!

Keown was quoted as saying on TalkSport: “I think Newcastle’s game-management has been brilliant, and I actually did an article on it and the number of minutes they have the ball in play. But yeah, Arsenal did play Newcastle at their own game.

“And it was interesting because, without naming names, a lot of those Newcastle players were getting particularly angry because sometimes it takes one to know one. So if you actually waste time, you know what someone else is doing.

“I thought Xhaka was brilliant in everything he did. The game management was so good. You can’t win every game playing beautiful football. Jorginho said himself, the players bought into what they needed to do and they played Newcastle at their own game.”

One thing that this does prove to Arsenal fans is that Mikel Arteta is getting even better at organizing tactics to beat any other team in the Premier league (except Man City so far, obviously!)

Mikel Arteta buzzing after Newcastle United 0-2 Arsenal – Revenge was very sweet..

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