Arsenal vs Newcastle United: A chance to make a statement

Over the past few seasons, Arsenal have been atrocious away from home. The first game, away to Newcastle United is the perfect place to make a statement.

Arsenal‘s 2019-2020 campaign comes to a beginning away from home to Newcastle United. As all of us fans are well aware of, the Gunners have not been particularly great in terms of playing away from home.

In fact, we have actually been utterly atrocious. Unai Emery’s men will want to prove doubters wrong coming into the season. Snatching an away victory to a team like Newcastle would be a perfect way to make a statement to the rest of the clubs in the Premier league that we are not a joke.

It is definitely worth noting that one of the few away fixtures that the Gunners managed a victory from last season was in the away match against Newcastle. Despite St. James Park being a notoriously difficult place to play, the reds of London still somehow managed to clinch three points.

A victory should be the goal and the club getting off to a winning start will help boost confidence going into the rest of the season.

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Many have criticized Emery, the players and even the club as a whole for having an extremely weak mentality when it comes to playing away from home. Defeating Newcastle would certainly help Arsenal in the quest of making a statement that this is no longer the case.

Newcastle are under new management, and it will be Steve Bruce’s first competitive fixture as the club’s manager. Bruce has come against the Gunners a grand total of 27 times in his managerial career and has only managed to win twice. Furthermore, he has also drawn to the reds of London six times and lost a total of nineteen of the fixtures.

The numbers are certainly to our benefit; however, crazier and more unpredictable losses have happened to us, even in recent times. The main goal of the first game of the season must be a victory, no matter how.

Emery must send out the strongest team he possibly can. The first game of any team’s season generally works as a platform going into the latter stages of the year. If we do unfortunately lose the game, it will certainly not be the end of the world; however, what many critics have said about the club being a “soft-touch” away from home will be proven to be more than a repetitive headline, perpetually shoved in our faces.

The first game of the season certainly could have been an easier fixture, but with that being said, if Emery’s men do manage a victory away from home in the seasons opening, it will be a statement to the rest of the teams within the Premier league that Arsenal are changing and evolving for the better.