Arsenal 1 – 0 Newcastle United – Match Report

A wondergoal from Ebere Eze saw us return to the top of the Premier League after beating Newcastle United at Emirates Stadium.

The game’s telling moment came just 10 minutes in when a clever corner routine paved the way for the England international to arrow the ball into the top corner of the Magpies’ goal to register his 10th Gunners goal.

And it could prove to be his most crucial as we held firm to keep the visitors at bay to recover from back-to-back defeats and return to the summit with four games to go, and also build co confidence heading into our Champions League semi-final showdown next week.

EZE’S EXCELLENCE

The Magpies arrived in poor form, having lost eight of their previous 11 league games, but aimed to prey on any nervousness in the early stages. Within seconds of the kick-off, a miskick by William Osula saw a great chance go begging, before Bruno Guimaraes whistled a shot over the top from 20 yards.

Having survived those scares, we began to cause problems of our own, and a short-corner routine saw Martin Odegaard find Eze who scuffed an effort wide, but in the 10th minute, more set-piece magic got us in front.

This time, a dummy run by Odegaard fooled Newcastle into thinking we were running a similar routine, but instead Noni Madueke picked out Kai Havertz in the area. He laid the ball off to Eze on the edge of the box, and this time he magnificently drilled it into the top corner out of the reach of Nick Pope. That was our 17th goal from a corner in the Premier League this season, breaking the all-time competition record.

ON A KNIFE-EDGE

But despite taking the lead, it was far from one-way traffic. David Raya was forced into an awkward save via a long-ranger from Sandro Tonali which bounced right in front of him, but he managed to do enough to shovel it away, and then we were forced into a change on 34 minutes when Havertz went off with a muscular injury and was replaced by Viktor Gyokeres.

Some more wayward shooting from the visitors saw them fail to trouble Raya again as the half drew to a close, and the opening 30 minutes of the second half saw little in the way of goalmouth action at either end, while Eze came off after picking up a knock, albeit he seemed in much less discomfort than the man who set up his goal, Havertz.

While both teams showed plenty of endeavour to try and grab a goal, neither could quite go so, and just when it looked like a huge chance would come our way when a mistake by Pope saw Gyokeres attempt to skip past him, the goalkeeper brought him down well outside his box but a VAR check for denial of a goalscoring opportunity let the Magpies keeper off the hook.

LATE CHANCES

However the Magpies continued to pose a goal threat, and having scored at least once in their last 18 league and cup fixtures, should have done so again with 10 minutes to play when a flick over our backline by Nick Woltemade saw the ball drop into Yoane Wissa’s path but he blasted his volley into the Clock End.

That was the call to bring on the returning Bukayo Saka after a month out of action, and within a minute of his introduction he saw a trademark curler after cutting inside deflect just wide, and the resulting corner saw Gabriel Martinelli attempt an overhead kick but the effort was straight into the arms of a grateful Pope.

The Geordies’ shot-stopper was called into action again when Odegaard took aim from 20 yards but saw the attempt pushed to safety, before seven minutes of additional time were shown by the fourth official. That set nerves jangling around Emirates Stadium, but our defence continued to hold firm despite a succession of Newcastle crosses to seal a massive victory that saw us return to the top heading into May.

WHAT’S NEXT

We head to Spain next week for the first leg of our Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, April 29, before we’re back in league action at Emirates Stadium on Saturday, May 2. Then we host Atleti in the second leg the following Tuesday.