Match report – Player ratings – By the numbers – Video

Yesterday I posed the question ‘Can the same team take the three points?’, wondering if Arsene Wenger might change things around after Monday night’s draw with Liverpool.  The manager made one obvious change, selecting Theo Walcott ahead of Olivier Giroud, while a reported knee injury for Mesut Ozil meant a place on the right for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

With Laurent Koscielny back in defence alongside Gabriel we started brightly, and got on top of the game very quickly. We should have had a penalty when Bellerin was clipped in the box, but Andre Marriner gave a goal kick, and we were causing them problems.

Newcastle’s plan to counter that was to pretend to be Stoke, banking on the old ‘Arsenal don’t like it up ’em’, and a lenient ref at home to knock us out of our stride. After Sissoko picked up a yellow for raking his studs down Monreal’s shin, the witless Mitrovic went one better doing it to Coquelin, getting himself an inarguable red card.

Afterwards, when discussing the red card, and 6 yellows they picked up for a series of very obvious fouls, Steve McClaren said that they felt like the victims of bad refereeing. It’s easy to play on the frustration of the home fans with the officials rather than admit your industrial plan to kick the opposition off the pitch backfired entirely. At least have the balls to own it, rather than blame a referee who, penalty aside, got it right every time.

The game changed after the red card though. It didn’t become any easier as Newcastle put up a dogged rearguard action. The selection of Walcott was made, as Wenger admitted afterwards, in the hope of using his pace to exploit space in behind. With a defence camped deep, it rendered that particular quality of his redundant, and as we’ve grown used to now with Walcott, when things aren’t just right, the game passes him by.

He had just 18 touches of the ball in the 70 minutes he was on the pitch. You might say that’s because he didn’t get the requisite service, but two of those touches were to miss glorious chances. One where a lack of conviction in the finish allowed Krul to save, the other when he shinned it over the bar from close range. I remain unconvinced by this idea Walcott is a genuine option as a central striker for us, and games like yesterday thoroughly reinforce that.

As ever we passed the ball a lot, 708 completed passes with 74.4% possession, as you’d expect against 10 men, but it felt like we lacked some drive in the final third. It is difficult to play against 10 men sometimes, we’ve seen better Arsenal teams than this one struggle to break down a massed defence, but when you’re having a stuttering start to the season you perhaps look at it as an opportunity to give yourself a confidence boost and we couldn’t do that.

Again, it wasn’t a question of creativity really, with 22 attempts at goal and 9 on target, it was one of finishing. Walcott was culpable as I mentioned previously, Krul saved well from Alexis, Cazorla and Ramsey, and Giroud missed a sitter late on too. The goal, when it came, will go down as another OG – Oxlade-Chamberlain’s shot was deflected into the bottom corner off the heel of Fabricio Coloccini. OG, not the one who smashed a ridiculous shot over the bar from a ridiculous angle, is our top scorer so far this season.

It’s understandable that the desire for us to upgrade in the striking position increases after a game like this, the question remains who is the player who can do that? But fair play to Walcott and Giroud for making it seem like Cripply Joe, the 3-toed gimp-leg from Mudtown Rovers would be that guy. That’s some real commitment to the team right there.

Afterwards, Arsene Wenger said:

You play away from home, 11 against 10, and you know that they will play 15 yards deeper, you play 10 against nine in the final third, the crowd is behind their team which puts pressure on the referee, and then it’s very difficult. We didn’t find the space. They defended well and they’ve shown why they didn’t concede at Manchester United as well. We are happy to have the three points and to win 1-0.

And look, getting down to brass tacks, Newcastle – when they weren’t trying to introduce their studs to soft tissue – did defend well. They made it difficult, and when you look at the game in the context of what else happened yesterday, this was very satisfying three points. Chelsea lost hilariously at home, Liverpool lost at home, and all the while we had three points tucked under our belts for the return journey to London. Complaints or gripes about the result, I simply don’t understand.

Worries about the performance though, that’s a separate matter. We were untroubled at the back, we dominated the game through the midfield, Ramsey made 5 chances, Cazorla 4, Alexis 2, but once again in front of goal we were fairly toothless. The introduction of Giroud gave the attack a bit more shape but his frustration was obvious with that daft effort after he’d just come on.

There was a moment on TV when he made the rolly-fingers substitution gesture as if he’d be the man to make the difference, but when slipped through by Ramsey in the final seconds, his attempt lacked any kind of conviction. When you you’re fed up at being left on the bench and make it clear that you’re fed up by that decision, you’d be well advised not to make yourself look like a chump.

I’m not usually that into what pundits say pre/post-game, but I thought Ian Wright was absolutely spot-on about Walcott. If he was going to be a central striker, the time to get him ready for that was five years ago, so he could learn the position and learn the movement required. Not at this age when it feels like this is simply to provide an alternative to Giroud and because he’s been usurped on the right hand side by Oxlade-Chamberlain and/or a central midfielder the manager prefers to use.

It’s hard to say that the arrival of a new forward would be the answer to all our problems, but what’s clear so far this season is that we’re having enormous trouble scoring goals. Is that something that will right itself when the incumbents get their eye in? Possibly. But it’s a risk. How long will that take? How many points will slip away if we continue in this vein?

It’s no wonder the manager was asked about possible new arrivals before the deadline. His answer is familiar enough:

We are open and we are in the transfer market. If we find an exceptional player in any sector, we will do it. At the moment I don’t know if something will happen or not. We’re working on it, I’m not any more or less optimistic than I was last week. You always want more goalscorers, but it’s unpredictable.

From everything he said pre-season about wanting more goals from his team, I think he knows we need something extra in this squad. He can talk about getting more from players already there, and I think that’s fair, but the concerns that what we have isn’t sufficient to do what fans, and indeed players, want this season – to challenge for the title – have been reinforced by the opening 4 games of the season.

I hope we can find something to give the squad a boost, I really do. I think we need it, but whether that happens between now and Tuesday at 6pm remains to be seen. We don’t have long to wait now either way.

Still, it’s nice to get the three points away from home (btw this is an interesting read about home v away form this season), we now head into an Interlull and what lies beyond.

Till tomorrow.