Declan Rice headed down the tunnel shaking his head and muttering to himself. Arsenal had just forfeited precious ground in the Premier League title race, Mikel Arteta looked incapable of ever smiling again and Rice seemed to be struggling to comprehend his inability to exert any sort of real control over midfield.
With Arteta’s defence incapable of suppressing the excellent Anthony Gordon and the outstanding match winner Alexander Isak on a day when Arsenal made a litany of uncharacteristic unforced errors, Eddie Howe’s team remembered how to be streetwise and reaped deserved rewards. After five Premier League games without a win, Newcastle look upwardly mobile once more.
Howe used his manager’s notes in the match programme to issue a reminder that playing the best sides “brings out the very best in us”. Any notions that this might be wishful thinking were debunked as Isak connected with Gordon’s fabulous right-wing cross to expertly head Newcastle into a 12th-minute lead after stealing in between Gabriel and William Saliba.
Until then Arsenal had been the better team but despite swiftly reasserting their earlier dominance, they struggled to create clear-cut chances.
Admittedly Fabian Schär somehow scrambled a menacing Bukayo Saka cross to safety before Lewis Hall’s courageous block came between the former Newcastle midfielder Mikel Merino and a viciously volleyed goal, yet Arteta’s frown suggested he was not overly optimistic.
Indeed almost every time Howe’s side counterattacked, Arsenal’s back line wobbled a little. Presumably aware of Jurrien Timber’s penchant for stepping into midfield from left back, Howe had deployed Gordon on his less preferred right flank, leaving the impressive Joelinton to attack the left.
With Gordon looking a natural in a role he would never have volunteered for, Arteta’s defenders found themselves dragged, repeatedly, into places they did not really want to go, while Isak’s intelligent positioning emphasised why Arsenal’s manager harbours a long-standing interest in recruiting the Sweden centre forward.
Arteta is also believed to be an admirer of Bruno Guimarães and that opinion would presumably not have been altered as he watched the Brazil midfielder – deployed at the heart of that department on a day when Italy’s Sandro Tonali began on the bench before eventually replacing Joe Willock – persistently interrupt visiting attacks, while winning quite a few clever free kicks along the way.
Hats off too to the former Arsenal midfielder Willock, who alongside Guimarães and Sean Longstaff, ensured Rice and friends most certainly did not have things all their own way. Behind them Hall, yet another player much improved by Howe’s coaching, shone at left back, largely second guessing an unusually subdued Saka.
It took a decent stop from David Raya to keep a low Isak shot out as Arteta began reshuffling his pack, introducing Oleksandr Zinchenko at left back and augmenting his attacking armoury with 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri.
They were soon joined by Ben White and Gabriel Jesus but, quite apart from defending incrementally deeper as the minutes ticked by, Newcastle were succeeding in making things so scrappily stop-start that Arsenal rarely settled into a convincing passing groove.
At one point late in the second half Pope went down apparently injured, offering his teammates a chance to regroup, but time-wasting alone did not secure a renascent Newcastle this much-merited victory.
