Arsenal vs Newcastle United: Unai Emery’s men have some cajones

Arsenal dug in for the win against Newcastle United, pulling it out in the second half. It’s safe to say that Unai Emery’s side has some cajones.

The momentum is starting to build and you can see a little bit of confidence starting to creep into our team. It goes without saying the fixtures over the last few weeks are games you would expect Arsenal to win, but the patented Arsenal way over the last couple of seasons would be to crack under the pressure.

You can’t help but wonder, if Arsene Wenger was still in charge, if we would have dropped a point or three.

The only problem, again, with the performance was the back five seemingly struggling to play out from the back, with Petr Cech nearly putting the ball out for a corner with an attempted pass to Shkodran Mustafi, and Mustafi again looking particularly error prone.

One of his mistakes may have been punished, if he hadn’t of been bailed out by his defensive partner Sokratis, who was a colossus at the back, throwing himself into challenges and looking very much like the defender this club has missed over the last few years.

These are mistakes, but they are mistakes that I’m sure Unai Emery will be keen to rectify, with Bernd Leno likely to start in Thursday’s Europa League tie. It will interesting to see if he looks competent, as Emery may risk starting him in next weeks game against Everton. You feel that Emery’s hands are tied with Mustafi. The club have been trying to find a buyer for him for the last year, but with Laurent Koscielny out until the new year he’s our only other senior defender.

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Newcastle were arguably the better side in the first half, with the opposition again looking to exploit Arsenal’s play out from the back plan, but no goalkeeper was really tested. Arsenal introduced Lucas Torreira at the start of the second half, and it was his lay off that Granit Xhaka curled beautifully over the Newcastle goalkeeper.

Once again you have to wonder why Torreira was benched, especially since this side looked like a completely different team when he was introduced. He went about his business quietly and showed a real energy in the centre of the field. He will surely be another starter on Thursday, and I feel that next Sunday against Everton he should be allowed to start, given that their midfield will represent a far more aggressive and attacking style than we have faced in the last few weeks.

Ozil broke his duck for the season in what was his 200th appearance, and we looked fairly comfortable throughout the rest of the game and could have grabbed another goal. Newcastle’s last minute goal didn’t really panic anyone but it still means we are without a clean sheet this season, although this was a improved defensive performance.

You can see there’s a new mindset in the players, they don’t panic, they have a bit of grit and finally they look like they have a bit of cajones.