The best combined eleven from Arsenal and Newcastle United teams – Very interesting | OneFootball

Newcastle United played Arsenal on Saturday.

We all know what happened.

Eddie Howe and his team the victors.

Mikel Arteta and his side the losers.

Ahead of the match, pretty much every ‘expert’, every journalist, pundit and so on, was predicting a comfortable win for Arsenal.

So what went wrong?

Or rather, what went right?!!

Well, here are the two starting eleven that faced each other:

Newcastle United:

Pope, Livramento, Schar, Burn, Hall, Bruno, Longstaff, Joelinton, Willock, Gordon, Isak

Arsenal:

Raya, Partey, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Saka, Rice, Merino, Martinelli, Trossard, Havertz

I tried my best to put my non-biased head on and tried to be as honest as possible, when selecting what I think is the best eleven, from these two Newcastle United and Arsenal sides.

I don’t mean just how these 22 players performed on the day, I mean looking at them in general, which players I would choose in my ideal team from the two sides.

Both Eddie Howe and Mikel Arteta were missing key players, which balanced each other out.

However, here I am just talking about those who did start Saturday’s match.

My combined Newcastle United and Arsenal eleven:

Pope/Raya

Livramento

Saliba

Gabriel

Hall

Bruno

Rice

Joelinton

Saka

Gordon

Isak

For me, this makes things a lot clearer.

Yes, Arsenal have some outstanding players BUT so do Newcastle United!

Newcastle United were deserved winners on Saturday and looking at my combined eleven, why should it have been a surprise?

I couldn’t split Pope and Raya, I think they are two excellent keepers.

However, when it came to outfield players, I went back and checked my selections and for sure I couldn’t find anything wrong with my split of six from Newcastle United and four from Arsenal.

Schar and Burn are really good for Newcastle but Saliba and Gabriel are almost certainly the best central defensive partnership in the whole of the Premier League.

Saka and Rice are excellent players and pick themselves.

The rest though?

Hall and Livramento are far superior to who Arsenal had at full-back AND the Newcastle United pair are only aged 20 and 21, going to get better and better.

Bruno and Joelinton are superior to NUFC old boy Merino and the other Arsenal options.

Whilst no contest when it comes to Isak and Gordon compared to Havertz and Martinelli.

This just absolutely reinforces why Newcastle United have to keep their very best players.

You only needed to hear the Arsenal fans crying on afterwards about how they want Isak, even convincing themselves that our striker from Sweden is a lifelong Arsenal fan who is desperate to move to them.

The Newcastle United team can challenge the usual suspects BUT we need to keep those best NUFC players AND then add to them.