Arsenal (2) 4 Newcastle United (0) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Saturday, 24th January 2024. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Jakob Kiwior; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho; Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Jesus, Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Cédric Soares, Leandro Trossard, Fábio Vieira, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny.

Scorers: Sven Botman (o.g.) (17 mins), Kai Havertz (24 mins), Bukayo Saka (65 mins), Jakob Kiwior (69 mins)

Yellow Cards: Martin Ødegaard

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 56%

Referee: Paul Tierney

Assistant Referees: Neil Davies, Nick Hopton

Fourth Official: Anthony Taylor

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Peter Bankes; AVAR Lee Betts

Attendance: 60,298

Going into this evening’s important match against the Magpies, we have started a calendar year with five straight Premiership wins for the first time in our glorious history, and it is entirely possible that Thomas Partey, who has been missing since October with a thigh injury, could return to the side tonight. Additionally, centre-forward Gabriel Jesus and full-back Oleksandr Zinchenko are nearing a return to the team, but our other full-back Takehiro Tomiyasu, remains out with a calf issue, sadly. 

In a cracking Saturday nightatmosphere in North London, we kicked off proceedings quickly and decisively, earning ourselves a corner within a minute of the start. We were keeping the visitors well pinned in back into their half, and we were not giving them any room to break out and cause us any trouble. Our captain received a yellow card for a mistimed tackle, which was unfortunate, and a minute or so later, Bukayo Saka was unlucky not to score when he sprang the offside trap, but his shot was easily gathered up by the Newcastle ’keeper. Declan Rice unleashed a shot which was well saved by Loris Karius, and with the amount of pressure and possession we have had in this game, it is amazing that we are not a couple of goals to the good by now. After just seventeen minutes, we opened the scoring from a corner, which although it looked as if Gabriel scored with a header, the subsequent mess that the Magpies’ defenders found themselves in, the goal was accredited as an own goal by Botman, which is okay, as they all count! It has certainly been coming, as we have pressurised and pushed Newcastle back into their own half constantly. Seven minutes after the first goal, we grabbed a second when Gabriel Martinelli received the ball from a long pass via the feet of Jorginho, took it to the byeline, crossed it and Kai Havertz tapped the ball into the net from close range. Superb play. Bruno Guimarães received a deserved yellow card for hacking down Jorginho, and then Martin Ødegaard neatly slipped the ball to Bukayo Saka, who fired over a cross for Gabriel Martinelli, whose header went over the bar, which was unlucky. We did not give the visitors any time at all to think, let alone regroup, as we pressed them constantly in our desire for goals. Bukayo Saka won the ball and jinked his way through three Magpies’ defenders before firing a terrific shot at the goal, which Loris Karius in the Newcastle goal, somehow managed to push away. Our overall play was tremendous; we press, pass and push the visitors back, and when we lose the ball, we win it back and keep looking for another goal. Somehow, the visitors managed to get a chance to score through Miguel Almirón, but David Raya easily blocked his half-hearted shot. During the three minutes injury time, the Magpies looked like they could not wait for the half to finish, as they looked completely shell-shocked from the events of the first forty-five minutes.

The visitors kicked off the second half here at the Emirates, and immediately we carried on where we left off from the first half, with pressure on the Newcastle goal with Kai Havertz picking up on a through ball, and his first touch went just wide of the visitors’ goal. So close. Anyway, at the other end, Alexander Isak had a sniff of scoring a goal as he tried to go around David Raya, but was unable to take a clear shot, and the rebound fell for Anthony Gordon, whose shot was blocked by our ’keeper. The visitors were starting to wake up a bit, and we were not quite as fluent as we were in the first half, but we were the better side by a country mile, despite the Magpies’ mini-resurgence. Gabriel Martinelli was replaced by Leandro Trossard just after the hour, and a couple of minutes later, Bukayo Saka grabbed our third goal when he cut in from the right-hand side of the penalty area, and unleashed a left-footed shot which went through a crowd of defenders and ended up in the corner of the net. Superb goal from our Top Gun! Four minutes later, an excellent Declan Rice corner found the head of Jakob Kiwior, who headed it into the net, via a slight deflection from Jamie Miley; but it was our man’s goal at the end of the day. Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson replaced Kai Havertz, Martin Ødegaard (who handed the captain’s armband to Jorginho) and Bukayo Saka with fifteen minutes of the game remaining to get fresh legs out there to consolidate our domination of Newcastle United tonight. However, with six minutes of the game remaining, the Magpies managed to grab a goal back via former Gunner Joe Willock, and a little while later, Mohamed Elneny replaced Jorginho, as the match started to wind down. The five minutes of injury time saw Dan Burn kick the ball off the line following a clever shot from Emile Smith-Rowe, and following that, the rest of the match was merely an exercise in game management by Arsenal. 

Top, top performance by the boys tonight, worthy winners from the start to the finish, no question. They are looking good with a great team spirit within the unit which shows in every match they play, home or away. They are disciplined, focussed, entertaining and ruthless at the same time, which is the hallmark of winners. An absolutely stunning performance by all concerned. Well done, chaps! 

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on Monday, 4th March at 8.00pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon

Every few years this topic re-appears…

“Mbappe will pay for himself with shirt sales”. No he won’t.

(Editor note: This blog was pre-written before it was announced that Mbappe was joining Real Madrid. Keenos is currently in Cairo visiting Elneny’s pyramids).

Arsenal have a kit manufacturing with Adidas that was recently extended until 2030. The new deal was reportedly worth £60million a year.

This is essentially a licensing and manufacturing deal which allows Adidas to make and sell football kits with Arsenal’s trademarked logos. Arsenal receive £60m from Adidas each year, and Adidas make their money back based on global sales from all outlets.

Arsenal back no additional revenue from global sales. The only additional revenue they make above the initial £60m is from shirts sold via Arsenal’s own retail outlets – the Armoury, the online shop, etc. When it comes to shirt sales, Arsenal’s revenue is no different to Sports Direct.

Retailers (including Arsenal), will purchase shirts of Adidas, and then sell them on to the customer. The profit they make is between what they buy and sell out. Arsenal make no money off sales from Sports Direct, Adidas or any other retailer. A quick summary:

Arsenal earn £60m a year in the manufacturing and licensing contract.
Adidas make their money from the difference between manufacture cost and what they sell to retailers.
Retailers (including Arsenal), make their money based off what they have bought from Adidas for, and what they sell to the consumer.

In theory, Arsenal could “make the cost of Mbappe back from shirt sales”. But we would need to sell approximately an additional 3 million shirts from our own outlets.

In 2022/23, we reportedly sold 850,000 shirts. The top selling football shirt globally was Liverpool with 1.8m. That makes it quite clear and obvious that we are not going to sell an additional 3m shirts with Mbappe.

An important factor is “additional”.

If little Stevie was going to get an Arsenal shirt with Saka 7 on his back, and then opted for Mbappe 14, this would not be an additional sale as Stevie’s dad was buying his boy a shirt regardless. It would not matter if we sold 500,000 Mbappe shirts if our total sold did not increase.

And remember, the additional 3m shirts would have to be sold only by us. No additional buyers going to Adidas or Soccer Scene. Taking this into account, there would probably have to be over 5.5m Arsenal shirts sold globally to take into account additional sales from other outlets.

So to pay for Mbappe through shirt sales, there would need to be in excess of 5.5m Arsenal shirt sales globally. That is more than 3 times the next best selling team.

Not going to happen. Learn before you comment. Transfer fees (or wages) do not get paid through shirt sales.

Keenos

That best selling Arsenal dog blanket! #AFC #ARSCRY https://t.co/GaILpC9oWf pic.twitter.com/PDIdIWIBxQ

— Kick Off Merchants (@KOMerchants) January 20, 2024

“Can we stop crying and focus on the next match” is how I feel right now.

We lost to Porto through a last minute stunner. It was a frustrating game to watch (due to Porto players doing what Porto players have done since the Jose years), and it was a frustrating finish. But as is always the way these days, the reaction has been over the top.

I have seen a lot of noise in the last 24 hours from the negative nancies who over analyse everything in an attempt to spread their negativity.

I have seen fans blaming David Raya, Gabriel Martinelli and others. This really does need to stop. The OTT analysis of a defeat and the blame game.

Thierry Henry once again provided the best analysis of the situation, pointing out had Martinelli’s pass hit the target we would have had a 3 on 2 and a good opportunity to go 1-nil up. With 6 men back, it there was very little risk in Martinelli playing that pass. 99 times out of 100 if it went to the opposition the loss of possession comes to nothing. This was the 1 in 100 where the misplaced pass led to a worldie strike.

Fans need to realise that losing is part of football, and it will always be part of football. If your bar of expectation is that the team you support should never lose a game, never disappoint you, then maybe football – and sport in general – should not be your thing.

I thought Mikel Arteta spoke brilliantly after the game, showing that the performance had taught him a lot and he already had his plan for the home leg in his head. Of course the best laid plans might not always come off.

The criticism after Porto is not too dissimilar to that which some fans delivered after the Lens defeat in France. We went on to win the home game comfortably.

The squad would have already forgotten about Wednesday. They would have had their debrief session and moved on to focus on the Newcastle game. I would advise fans to do the same.

We do not face Porto until 12 March. We have 3 Premier League games before then. If we are to win this league title, we need to keep the focus on the next game.

In depth analysis of Porto will be done by Arteta and his team in preparation for the 2nd leg. For now it will be about communicating the game plan to best Newcastle with.

Winners quickly move on after a defeat. Losers dwell on the past.

Keenos