Mikel Arteta spoke of his "pride" in his Arsenal players after they claimed a 2-0 victory against Newcastle at St. James' Park. The Gunners came into the day knowing that anything less than a win at the ground where their Champions League hopes capitulated last season, would likely spell curtains for their Premier League title hopes this time around.
For a while, it looked as though it would be a repeat of last season's traumatic events as Jacob Murphy struck the post within 90 seconds before Newcastle were awarded a penalty for handball by Jakub Kiwior. After a lengthy delay though VAR intervened to overturn the penalty in an event that appeared to turn the momentum of the game. Moments later Arsenal were in front via a well-taken Martin Odegaard finish from the edge of the box, and were it not for the profligacy of Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, they could have been even further ahead by halftime.
In a rollercoaster match however, Newcastle roared back in a manner befitting of the atmosphere in which the game was played. Alexander Isak hit the post before Aaron Ramsdale produced a sublime save from Fabian Schar as the hosts turned up the pressure.
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Again though Arsenal held on, and struck what proved to be the fatal blow to any chance of a Newcastle comeback when Schare turned Martinelli's cross into his own net. From that point on the Gunners went on to see out the victory with the kind of mature game management that had been sorely lacking in this arena last season, much to the acclaim of their manager.
"I think the word to describe it is pride," Arteta said when asked to describe his emotions in his post-match press conference. "When you have question marks you have to resolve them straight away. When you have the emotions we had last year in that dressing room, you have to feel them again, realise how nasty they are and then find a way to approach the game differently because demands were going to be different from last year. The boys did that extremely well so I’m really proud of them."
Ramsdale later went on to reveal that in a team meeting on the morning of the game, Arteta used footage of last season's game from Amazon's All or Nothing documentary to inspire his side. Speaking on the motivational technique, the Spaniard revealed that he had done so in the hope of reminding his players of the emotions that had felt at this stage of last season.
"We had to feel it," he said. "It wasn’t enough just to talk about it, we had to feel it, we had to see it, we had to recognise our faces. Not just the players but what it meant for the staff as well. That’s football. You can win or lose, but that feeling that we didn’t do enough on the day, we had to put it right."
As well as being one of Arsenal's most impressive wins of the season, it was a crucial victory to keep their Premier League title hopes alive. Manchester City remain overwhelming favourites courtesy of their one-point lead at the top of the table and extra game in hand, but the Gunners proved that they will be able to take the race all the way down to the wire.
"That we are there, that we want to keep digging," Arteta said when asked what the result represented in the title race. "The prize is there, not too far. The only thing we can do is keep insisting and not turn our backs and lose focus on something else. Be determined every single day. Let’s keep going and see what happens."
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