Arsenal’s win at Newcastle delivers joyful justice for fans | OneFootball

Arsenal’s last minute Brazilian job up in Newcastle on Sunday evening was a deserved reward for an attacking performance full of verve and invention that had, for 84 minutes, looked as though it would founder on the twin rocks of Newcastle’s much mentioned defensive solidity and the PGMOL.

We’re all Arsenal fans here, right? We’ve seen a few unjust goals in our time, even scored a few of them ourselves. But there was something almost comically unjust about the way we had seen Nick Pope deny Ebere Eze twice, the post deny Leandro Trossard and the VAR deny Arsenal what most agreed was a nailed on penalty (obviously, we’ll come back to that).

And then we had the dubious pleasure of watching Cristhian Mosquera slice a ball out for a needless corner, Gabriel decide to go down and try to buy a foul he was never going to get rather than stand up and try and put Rudi Voller Nick Woltemade off his header into the corner.

Was it really going to happen again? It certainly looked like it might.

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Whilst Arsenal kept going into the second half, we didn’t really look as though we were going to find a way through – Pope’s save from Jurrien Timber‘s header having been delightfully lobbed in by Martin Zubimendi as sure a signal as any it wasn’t going to be our day.

And yet. And yet.

Our own short corner, five minutes left. Rice, Eze and Odegaard (how good is it to type those three names together? Very good) and Declan Rice‘s wicked delivery is flicked home off the far post by Mikel Merino.

Yes, the same Mikel Merino whose selection *checks notes* last weekend was derided as evidence of Mikel Arteta‘s excessive caution. I nearly smashed my knee up kicking our sofa in a furious celebration, my mate James may have traumatised his wife and boy Stanley for life.

I’m going to put my hand up here and say that when the team dropped last weekend, I wasn’t super happy to see Merino’s name on the team sheet, but not because he’s not an attacking player – he absolutely is. But in the absence of Martin Odegaard, we needed a player who can knit the attack together and Merino is quite obviously not that.

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Anyway, it’s kind of ironic that, having kept us at bay for 84 of the 90 minutes, it’s really Nick Pope we have to thank for our winner. Carelessly sending the ball up the field to the grateful feet of MLS, eventually another Declan Rice cross is headed out for one final corner.

“Please just get this one right” I mutter under my breath. And, boy, did we. Odegaard’s delivery is spot on, Saliba does just enough to block Nick Pope without fouling him and Gabriel nods the ball home.

AAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

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Have that Eddie Howe, Jason Orange (no, not that one), Shaka Hislop and you as well Jimmy Nail! Your boys just took a hell of a beating, Spuggy can you hear meeeeee?

We have been shafted and dumped on for the last two hours and we picked ourselves up off the floor and found a way to win. And, make no mistake, whilst the goals came from set pieces, this was a triumph of creativity and going out and trying to win a game of football.

Newcastle might have done a little better had they focused on that and not trying to be the Stoke of the North East.

They set their stall out early with Joelinton committing what seemed to be an obvious yellow card foul on Bukayo Saka with barely a minute on the clock. No card, he continued blunderbussing his way across the pitch, ultimately receiving a yellow card for… kicking the ball away. You couldn’t make it up.

Nor could you when Jarred Gillett awarded Viktor Gyokeres the one foul he was given all game, which would have been a penalty, had the VAR not intervened to point out Nick Pope’s slightest of touches on the ball.

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It’s funny how the PGMOL seem to arbitrarily decide whether contact on the ball matters or not. Of course, we all remember how we were told William Saliba had not in fact played the ball when colliding with Joao Pedro at Brighton in December last year. After a lengthy VAR review, which – as Bukayo Saka respectfully pointed out post match – really calls into question the whole “clear and obvious” thing, the penalty is rescinded and Arsenal left to seethe.

I don’t know whether it matters that Darren England is the VAR who saw nothing in the MLS tackle at Wolves to suggest Michael Oliver was wrong to have brandished a red card, but it is fascinating to me how often we come out the wrong side of a VAR review.

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And that Viktor Gyokeres can suffer Jamal Lascelles attempting a live recreation of the 90’s Travolta and Cage starring actioner, Face/Off on him – and still not get a free kick.

Has anyone seen, or heard from Bruno Guimares by the way? Was he even playing yesterday?

Annnnnnnyway, I guess we don’t have to worry about it now, nor do we have to worry about trips to Newcastle, Old Trafford or Anfield (cup competitions notwithstanding) for the next year. Huzzah! And we’ve got through this pretty challenging period, suffering an injury a game up until the last two matches, coming out of it just two points behind the league champions and early pace setters, Liverpool. Double huzzah And thank you for your service, Eddie Nketiah!

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It’s been a pretty emotional time really. Eight days ago, I was standing in the Clock End along with everyone else, willing an Arsenal goal which – again – never really felt like it was coming.

To be honest, when Ebere Eze had the ball on the halfway line, I’m not sure I was even really seeing it. But as Gabriel Martinelli ran through and the ball looped up into the North London sky, dropping in slow motion, I was definitely seeing it. As the ball bounced towards the goal, it’s not going in, is it? The fans behind the North Bank goal, our canaries in the coalmine, telling you very clearly, yes it is! And then it is absolute bedlam, in me, around me. Everyone.

Jo told me later she’d never seen me celebrate a goal like that one, no, not even yesterday.

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One good thing about VAR, the semi automated offside process has really sped things up and now we don’t have to worry about Lee Mason “forgetting” to draw lines.

A month ago, I was lucky enough to be at the Leeds game at the end of August and – yes, of course I was in the ground in good time for the most emotional new signing announcement in my Arsenal supporting lifetime – as we welcomed Ebere Eze home. I’ve wanted this guy at Arsenal for ages. I’d watched him at QPR a bit and, with his mix of technical ability and power – put to great use at Palace over the last 5 years (especially the last one!), he’s always felt like a typical Mikel Arteta player. Did the man himself want him?

Obviously.

Happily we got that answer just as the possibility of Eze joining… them opened up.

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Oh wow, what an afternoon. Ebere got the kind of reception normally reserved for trophy lifts, so he has to win us one now. If you were in any doubt as to whether he would be a popular signing, let me just say this. As soon as I got home, I placed my order for an “Eze 10” shirt complete with free shirt printing – the third one, obviously. That shirt arrived last weekend.

About a week before it arrived, I received an email from Arsenal apologising for the delay, but obviously we’ve been very busy – that sort of thing. I’m sure you got one too.

To me, bringing Ebere home feels like something the Arsenal fanbase needed to happen. If I hadn’t been going on for so long already, I might get into why that is, but I think everyone reading this will have their own, very personal reasons.

Speaking personally, I find his story incredibly compelling, but none of that would matter if he wasn’t such a fun footballer to watch. And I think we can see already that, alongside his England teammates – with Noni Madueke also now added to the mix – he is going to bring the fun back to Arsenal.

Let’s go lads, let’s go. Handbrake off.