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Match Report By Wullie
(16 August 2005)
Having failed to spot the Hand of Axel F last season, this time he accompanied some baffling wrong decisions at corners and throw ins by sending Jermaine Jenas off for a robust but fair tackle, before granting Arsenal a late penalty when Charles N’Zogbia was in the wrong place at the wrong time as Freddie Ljungberg kicked the ground and fell over. 2-0 to Arsenal then, but that doesn’t really tell the full story of a game in which a Newcastle side clearly desperately lacking in firepower served up an unexpected performance, showing both quality and fight. Up until Jenas walked, we controlled the game in midfield with the new boys Parker and Emre excellent, while behind them Henry looked totally impotent against the cool Boumsong. Alongside him Taylor put in a sterling performance, possibly his best so far for the club, while even Babayaro found time to look interested. For all this though we never looked like scoring and having to watch Shearer drag a shot across his goal was about as much action as Jens Lehmann saw in the Arsenal goal. Any slim chance we had of breaking them down evaporated in the first half when Bennett, clearly jealous of his Orpington chum Barry Knight getting the chance to give Newcastle players red cards as often as he likes, saw fit to brandish one of his own for a tackle in which Jenas could not have won the ball any cleaner. He took Gilberto with him, but the challenge had no malice and the red card was ridiculous. Bennett was probably still half asleep since he only needed to roll out of bed an hour before kick off to make it in time from his cosy London suburb, unlike the travelling hordes from Newcastle, for whom his rescinding of the card does no good whatsoever. The card effectively put paid to any chance Newcastle had of winning the game meaning that containing Arsenal was the order of the day, something which was very nearly achieved. A battling spirit, all too rare last season, showed itself in the side, something which will need to continue all season instead of fleetingly when backs are against the wall. The addition of Parker and Emre has done us no harm on this front. Emre drifted out of this game as it wore on and Arsenal became dominant, but Parker thrived on it, throwing himself into tackles and in front of shots in a manner too rarely seen in black and white these days. For the first time in a long time, our midfield competed away from home, even when a man down, and that will go a long way to putting right our pitiful away form of recent seasons. Chances came and went for Arsenal, with Shay Given picking up where he left off on this ground last season with some superb saves to keep our heads above water and he even managed to make a better effort than usual with the debated penalty that eventually beat him. United made an attempt at driving forward but striker-less it was always going to be in vain and the gaps left enabled van Persie to nip in at the front post and silence his taunters in the away end. This match could have turned into an embarrassment but instead we left Highbury for the last time with renewed optimism of things to come. While the squad is, and will remain, worryingly thin for the coming season, the first team itself looks in good shape, providing the places where it is short are filled by the time September arrives. A defeat to Arsenal on their own turf without a shot is not something to get overly concerned about at present, but it could easily be a whole season of this. Fill those gaping holes in the attacking areas and this first team is good enough to start looking up at the Champions League places again, though I dare say our inevitable hamstring crisis will put paid to that regardless. Don’t fill them at all however, and this type of performance will become the norm, not just against Arsenal and Chelsea, but against the rest of the Premiership dross. There is promise here - without someone to put the ball in the back of the net though, it’s totally wasted. Who’ll get them is a mystery, but we need goals against West Ham on Saturday. Fail against them at St. James’ and even this early on the voices of discontent will be very loud indeed.
Lineups & match facts
Goals: Henry 81 pen, Van Persie 87. Newcastle: Given, Carr, Boumsong, Taylor, Babayaro, Dyer (N'Zogbia 69), Jenas, Parker (Faye 82), Emre, Bowyer, Shearer (Milner 72). Subs Not Used: Elliott, Harper. Sent Off: Jenas (32). Booked: Boumsong. Att: 38,072
Post Match Reaction
"They are a good side. It is never easy to play 10 men but I like the fact that we knew how to win because we kept patient. "Against a good Newcastle side, we knew before our penalty we could score - we could smell the goal coming. "I think Jermaine Jenas made a dangerous tackle. He brought his right foot on the standing leg of Gilberto." Graeme Souness "If you speak your mind, you end up in trouble, so I'm not going to speak about him (ref Steve Bennett) and the same goes for my players. "They are quite rightfully upset at the things that went on out there. I am protecting them from saying something that might land them in trouble. "I blame myself for Jermaine's sending off. About 10 seconds before I was standing on the touchline shouting at him to be stronger in the tackle and that's what happens. "Up until the sending off of JJ, we were more than a match for a team who will be challenging for the championship come the end of the season." |
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Match Report: Arsenal 2-0 Newcastle United
