Arsenal went away to Newcastle on Saturday afternoon and won 1-0 – and while they played arguably the most boring game of the season, much more so than the nil-nil draw at home to Liverpool earlier in the week. The highlights of the game were arguably the fact that there were six yellow cards and the one red for Newcastle, as well as the Fabricio Coloccini own-goal set up by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The arbitrary red card is what set the teams apart, but should Newcastle have had striker Aleksandar Mitrović for the entire match, it would have been much more open and Newcastle would not have sat back and defended for most of the match.
Arsenal clearly missed Mesut Özil, and that showed in their woeful final third passing. Let’s take a look at today’s three stars.
Third Star: Francis Coquelin, Arsenal
Coquelin showed much improvement throughout the match, facilitating the attack, something he had desperately needed to work on as he was becoming a liability, and players in his position need to provide support going forward. In the early stages, he would pass the ball back to the centre-backs and ruin the flow of the attack instead of making a semi-dangerous pass to a half-open teammate. As the match went on, he gained more confidence, took control after breaking down attacks, and would take more risks. Also, he drew the foul that led to the red card on Aleksandar Mitrović and he caused disruptions and took away the momentum of Newcastle’s attacks when they came his way.
Second Star: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arsenal
The Ox gets the second star almost solely for setting up the own goal. Otherwise, he was relatively sloppy and did not take the chance of starting a match that he so badly desired. He made some good runs down the wing, but he, like most of his teammates in attack, did not stop giving the ball away. His driven shot toward goal was what separated the two teams, so he gets the second star for providing that.
First Star: Tim Krul, Newcastle
Krul was solid all day for Newcastle and if it was not for his outstanding performance between the pipes, the goal tally for Arsenal could have been much, much higher. He made a nice save on Alexis Sanchez’s bending free-kick as well as the two challenging shots before the own goal, which, in fairness to the Dutch goalkeeper, would not have been saved by even the most talented ‘keepers. Krul’s distribution was also very good all day, as he would give the ball to is full backs in open space to start attacks, rather than force a risky pass to his midfielders in the centre of the park. He limited uncertainty within his team even while they were down to 10 men, and that is the most important part of a goalie’s job, so Krul gets the Man of the Match award.
