It feels like a long time since a team has arrived at Arsenal with no interest in winning a game.
We’ve had defensively-minded sides, counter-attacking sides, plain cynical sides too over the years but to host a Premier League side whose sole intent was on taking a point feels like a rewind from the peak era of Arsene Wenger and our very own north London brand of tiki-taka.
In those days, sides would slip into the classic two banks of four and sit in the lowest of low blocks while we would spend 90 minutes camped in the opposition half, trying desperately to find even a half-yard of space to fashion an opportunity.
It was terribly sterile football and, towards the latter end of Arsene’s reign, became as predictable as the break-away goal the visiting sides would score to make our task twice as hard. Try as he did, Arsene increasingly struggled to crack the code.
Those feelings of frustration were back in abundance on Tuesday night as Newcastle put on a 90-minute display worthy of anything that Burnley might have produced at the Emirates over the years…and then some. They were belligerent, cynical, dour and absolutely reveled in their time-wasting, time-eating tactics. They came for a point and to avoid conceding and did exactly that.
And look, fair play to them. They achieved their goal using every means at their disposal. They put bodies on the line, took cards when needed, fouled, cajouled, complained, and broke up the play with gusto. I read somewhere that the ball was in play for just 47 minutes of last night’s contest. A whole half of football wasted in feigning injury, dawdling and distraction.
In games like these, you need either a moment or two of luck or the support of the referee and Arsenal simply had neither. In fact, the referee actively abetted the antics of the visiting side and made their job all the easier. He was easy to distract, entirely tolerant of the time-wasting and made barely any attempt to stop the endless gamesmanship.
Sometimes that happens and sometimes it works to your advantage, I understand that. What I don’t understand and can’t excuse, however, is rank bad officiating. The cards given and not given last night were baffling to say the least and the total failure to award a penalty for the garroting of Gabriel in the penalty area was inexcusable. With VAR cameras trained on the incident, I simply cannot fathom how it wasn’t called.
On nights like last night, when a single moment can make the difference, we were badly let down.
Leaving the refereeing aside, it would also be fair to say that we didn’t move the ball quickly enough for long periods and suffered from a lack of options up front. When we needed to change the tempo, introduce something different, perhaps change our shape, we had nobody to turn to on the bench. There were some midfield options, for sure, but nothing sufficiently dissimilar from what was on the pitch to convince the manager that the change was worth making.
Hopefully, it is something that we can address this month in the shape of a few new signings because, in the league, teams learn fast and Newcastle’s success would not have gone unnoticed. Not everybody will be able to play that way for 90 minutes and get away with it, of course, but the way we were frustrated and unable to do much about it will have been noted. Our efforts in the transfer window may need to be redoubled.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that, as bitter as it feels today, it was by no means a bad performance from Mikel Arteta’s men and it has genuinely been an excellent run. As the saying goes, you can’t win them all and we most certainly will have other frustrating nights between now and the end of the season. Amid our grumbles, at least we have another point in the bag.
Next up for us in the Premier League is the north London derby and all eyes must now turn to that game. We’re in good shape right now while Spurs are beginning to stutter. For the first time in a long time, we go into the derby in a good place and with a big chance to pick up some points.
And while the Newcastle result invoked some of the less-loved memories of the Wenger era, victory at Spurs would invoke some of the very best.
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