{"id":13289,"date":"2026-04-26T00:12:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T23:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13289"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:58:12","slug":"meet-the-new-league-just-like-the-old-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=13289","title":{"rendered":"Meet The New League – Just Like The Old League!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Prologue<\/strong>
This was the first of five league matches and potentially three Champions League matches in Mikel Arteta\u2019s \u201cnew league\u201d – his approach to drawing a line under a string of hesitant, nervous and ultimately poor results and performances. Poor, that is, excepting last week\u2019s very good and most unlucky showing against the Abu Dhabi Cheats. 
This week\u2019s events have shown the loss at the Emptihad to be even more unjust than us merely being denied a win by hitting the post twice in the second half. Footage has emerged – that VAR typically couldn\u2019t be bothered with – of both Havertz being felled for a stonewall penalty, and Gabriel being held back from reaching the ball by the gargoyle that is Erling Haaland as he was about to score the winner. There has been online content suggesting that PGMOL were writing to apologise and that Arsenal would appeal to the Premier League for a replay if that were to prove to be the title decider. How much of that is true I don\u2019t know but it would seem eminently justified to me. 
Team news<\/strong>
Following the news that Bukayo Saka and Riccardo Calafiori would be back in the squad for this game, the Arsenal line up turned out to be –
Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Hinkapie ; Odegaard, Zubimendi, Rice; Madueke, Havertz, Eze; 
Bench: Kepa, Mosquera, Saka, Jesus, Martinelli, Trossard, Gyokeres, Dowman, Lewis-Skelly.
That looks far more like the squad we hoped to see over much more of the season than has been the case, although Calafiori was not in the squad after all. There has been a lot of frustration and criticism of the way the team has played, particularly in the second half of the season, but fitness has had, I believe, some far reaching effects.Firstly, and obviously, players simply not being available to play.Second, those who have been regularly available have played too many games, a number exacerbated by far too many internationals.Third, those same players have almost certainly had to play within themselves to try to conserve energy and avoid further injuries.
The return of Odegaard last week, together with an improving Havertz, allowed the team to play a different style and nearly achieve a win at probably the most difficult place in the league – along with the Emirates.
For Newcastle, Guimaraes returned to the midfield but Aaron Ramsdale was dropped to the bench in favour of ice Pope. The good news was that Jo The Thug (Jo el Linton in Portuguese) was out suspended.
First half<\/strong>
With North London Forever ringing off the terraces, I wanted to say, but out of the seats it has to be, the Arsenal set about, er, nearly giving a goal away after 25 seconds, and then again after 3 minutes after overplaying at the back.
There followed a series of three corners which revealed our new short corner routine. To groans from the crowd the first two produced only a shot wide from Eze\u2019s left foot. Number three was slid to Havertz who turned and fed Eze who curled in a beautiful right foot shot to the far inside netting from 20 yards.
Arsenal 1 – 0 Newcastle <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was strange to see Newcastle with the lion\u2019s share of the ball but when Arsenal did break they broke quickly and looked more threatening than they have of late. Madueke ran up a blind alley while I was yelling at him to shoot, and then two minutes later he did shoot, or rather rolled the ball back harmlessly to Pope.
Havertz was linking play well and Eze was providing the unpredictability that we have lacked. And, of course, whatever they did there was the unfailing Mancy whine of Gary Neville on TV to tell us what they should have done instead.
Raya saved well when Tonali shot through the crowd in front of him following a Newcastle corner. But then Kai Havertz went down somewhat mysteriously with a leg injury and had to be replaced by Gyokeres. Will we ever make it through one single game where we don\u2019t lose another player to injury ? 
As the half drew to a close we still seemed to be looking backwards too often and playing for safety first. That\u2019s understandable to an extent – the trouble was since Eze\u2019s goal Newcastle had had eight shots to our one as we retreated and a one goal lead is very slender and vulnerable to a single mistake.I had hoped to see a quicker, more positive approach after the performance at Man City and talk of lines being drawn but, unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t to be. The fact is that however much we might want them to relax and play, the players seem almost paralysed with nerves as a first title for twenty two years becomes a possibility. They are human, just like us. We can tell them exactly how torturous this process is. 
Half time: Arsenal 1 – 0 Newcastle <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second half began much like the first had played out. Newcastle had most of the ball, Gary Neville continued to whine and Arsenal naturally lost another player to injury – this time it was Eberechi Eze after just six minutes of the half, although he walked quite comfortably off the pitch. Martinelli replaced him and would hopefully add a bit more physicality to the middle of the pitch where we were being outfought.
On the hour mark the home fans sang up to try to fire up the team and I found myself hoping for a substitution to change things somehow. Havertz\u2019 departure seemed to have left us with no focal point up front and Madueke continued to produce nothing from our corner and free kick routines. It was Newcastle who rang the changes though, replacing Murphy and the speedy Osula with Barnes and Wissa. 
Gyokeres came to life with a strong chase to win the ball back, only for our midfield to surrender it again. At last, after more, often over intricate play on the edge of the area, a sweeping move ended with a blocked shot from Zubimendi. Why are we so reluctant to play a couple of quick, early balls into space and arrack them to cause a bit of chaos ? 
Mikel Arteta agreed with me (!) in his post match interview that Pope should have been sent off for bringing Gyokeres down with a rugby tackle 40 yards from goal after rushing out and missing the ball. Referee\u2019s decision ? Yellow card. Inexplicable to me, correct call according to the still whining Manc. I do wonder what an opposing keeper has to do to one of our players to actually get sent off. 
With around 10 minutes to go, Bukayo Saka and MLS replaced Madueke and Zubimendi. Saka immediately gave our forward play more purpose. Wissa blazed over from a Woltemade pass, thank goodness, but that miss was matched by Gyokeres who completely failed to roll the ball in for Saka who was through on goal on 93 minutes. After eight of the seven – yes, why ? – added minutes the final whistle went and everyone could breathe again. 
Full time: Arsenal 1 – 0 Newcastle <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried to enjoy this game and be very positive about our \u2018new 5 game season\u2019. All I can tell you is I positively did not enjoy it. The tension is unbearable. We won and now we can all fret about the cost of that victory – more injuries to Havertz and Eze. \u201cNot too serious\u201d, said Arteta afterwards, but I\u2019ve long since stopped believing anything he says about injuries. How has that man still got immaculately groomed, jet black hair ?
For the second match running we should have finished playing against ten men. Just think about some of the red cards we have had given against us. I\u2019m thinking specifically about Saliba\u2019s red card against Bournemouth last season in the context of what Pope did to Gyokeres today. This happens to us far too often to be down to chance. It\u2019s disgraceful.
I don\u2019t know about the players but I must be a major doubt for Atleti on Wednesday. I have no idea how I\u2019m going to recover by then.
By the way – We are top of the league, say \u2026..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The PrologueThis was the first of five league matches and potentially three Champions League matches in Mikel Arteta\u2019s \u201cnew league\u201d – his approach to drawing a line under a string of hesitant, nervous and ultimately poor results and performances. Poor, that is, excepting last week\u2019s very good and most unlucky showing against the Abu Dhabi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13291,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13289\/revisions\/13291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}