Richard Keys gives benefit of his expertise on why Arsenal lost to Newcastle United

2 weeks ago 15

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Richard Keys has been talking about events at St James’ Park on Saturday.

Eddie Howe having once again schooled Mikel Arteta on Tyneside.

Richard Keys declaring:

‘The Toon didn’t really have to work that hard to beat them. Arsenal had just one shot on target over the 90 mins – nothing in the second half when they were trailing. That’s poor. Really poor. They were completely out of ammo.’

This has been a theme picked on by so many, not just Richard Keys.

Why Arsenal lost to Newcastle United.

As opposed to, why Newcastle United beat Arsenal.

In their previous Premier League match, I don’t recall the media saying that Liverpool deserved little/no credit for scraping a 2-2 draw against Arsenal after trailing from the first half and grabbing a point with an 81st minute goal. That it was all about how rubbish Arsenal were.

Reality is that it was Newcastle United who made Arsenal look as though they had such little threat and restricted the Gunners to just one tame non-threating effort on target (NUFC had four efforts on target).

This was exactly what happened 12 months earlier at St James’ Park, Arsenal with one weak effort on target straight at Nick Pope from outside the box, whilst Newcastle caused problems at the other end and Anthony Gordon scored that deserved winner.

Before coming to St James’ Park, Arsenal had only lost one of their last twenty matches (all competitions) and that was when they went down to 10 men in the first half at Bournemouth.

Newcastle United were superb on Saturday and that is why Arsenal lost.

Richard Keys via his personal blog – 5 November 2024:

‘I was going to ask the question ‘what’s really wrong with Arsenal’ today.

I intended to make the argument their slump couldn’t simply be because Odegaard is missing. A club the size of Arsenal should be able to absorb the loss of one player – no matter how good he is. That’s why I don’t buy into the argument that Rodri is irreplaceable at City.

Arteta has looked out of sorts recently. Having said that – I’m not convinced that knowing Edu’s plans (Arteta will definitely have had knowledge) should’ve affected things in any way at all on the pitch. It’s just all a bit odd. But there’s definitely something not right.

They were way off the pace you expect from a team with title ambitions at Newcastle. The Toon didn’t really have to work that hard to beat them. Arsenal had just one shot on target over the 90 mins – nothing in the second half when they were trailing. That’s poor. Really poor. They were completely out of ammo.’

Newcastle 1 Arsenal 0 – Saturday 2 November 12.30pm

(Stats via BBC Sport)

Goals:

Newcastle United:

Isak 12

Arsenal:

Possession was Newcastle 36% Arsenal 64%

Total shots were Newcastle 9 Arsenal 10

Shots on target were Newcastle 4 Arsenal 1

Corners were Newcastle 4 Arsenal 6

Touches in the box Newcastle 17 Arsenal 32

Newcastle United team v Arsenal: