Arteta offers no excuses as Arsenal rolled at Newcastle: We deserved to lose | OneFootball

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·16 May 2022

Arteta offers no excuses as Arsenal rolled at Newcastle: We deserved to lose

Article image:Arteta offers no excuses as Arsenal rolled at Newcastle: We deserved to lose

Arsenal's hopes of finishing in the Premier League top four were dealt a huge blow as they were well beaten by Newcastle at St James' Park.

Mikel Arteta's side needed a win to move above Tottenham into fourth and put them in the driving seat to secure a Champions League spot heading into the final weekend of the season.


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But they were second best throughout and fell behind early in the second half when Ben White turned the ball into his own net under pressure from Callum Wilson, who was making his first start since 27 December.

Bruno Guimaraes, who has become a cult hero since joining Newcastle at the start of this year, then rounded off the impressive win when he drove into the net as Arsenal struggled to clear.

Arsenal offered next to nothing, with Martin Dubravka only really tested once, with a 25-yard Mohamed Elneny shot in the second half.

Indeed, Newcastle could have won by more with Wilson coming so close to capping a dream return from injury with a stunning long-range effort that dropped just wide of the goal.

The result, which also confirmed Chelsea's finish in the top four, means Arsenal must beat Everton in their final game of the season on Sunday (16:00 BST) and hope Tottenham lose at relegated Norwich.

Newcastle, meanwhile, round off a season that provides encouragement for the future with a trip to Burnley.

Arteta later said: "We deserved to lose and we probably deserved to lose by a bigger margin with the way that we have performed and the way that we have competed in this match.

"Right from the beginning they were on top of everything and we didn't manage to get out of our own half, we put ourselves in trouble, we lost every duel, every second ball. We didn't compete in the game in the way that game required to do so, and we never earned the right to get anything out of the game.

"That we went through the storm of the game that we didn't want to play, and we discussed before the match the game that we had to avoid and exactly the game that we were playing. We tried to change it and we started slightly better, but then obviously the first goal and the way we conceded the first goal hit us and we tried to change, we put our attacking players on and we changed formation, but we were so sloppy in everything that we did today.

"It's a really difficult night. We fought a lot, we went through a lot and we have generated an expectation that probably no one would talk about at the start of the season with the squad that we have, but we have managed to get through here basically with respecting certain principles and always competing in football matches, and tonight we haven't done that."

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