Gunners 4 Toon 0

Last updated : 17 February 2022 By Footy Mad - Editor

For weeks now fans have been saying "Bruce parks the bus every game, because that is all he knows ... he doesn't have a Plan B."

On this second half showing ... he doesn't have a Plan A either.

Let's be honest, we have been riding our luck for weeks. Results have been canny impressive but the performances have been poor.

On Sunday we actually started well, then the wheels fell off.

Arsenal continued to show improvement under Mikel Arteta at the Emirates Stadium, but they are a pale shadow of what they were under Wenger. So that makes the heavy defeat feel even worse.

The Gunnerswere as lifeless in the first half as we were in the second, but they had the players who can find the back of the net ... we don't.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Nicolas Pepe, Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette all found the net, ending the Gunners' run of four successive Premier League draws.

It was only their second win of 2020 and I'm sure Arteta will believe his side are now on an upward trend as he tries and implements his ideas. When, in fact, they were average at best.

Pepe bagged two assists, the sort of contribution that is expected from his £72million price tag in the summer, while Ozil scored his first goal since last April and Lacazette ended a nine-game drought.

Newcastle, who set up with five at the back, probably needed to score first, but they had chances to get back into the game, notably through Allan Saint-Maximin's shot which hit a post.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: "We feel better now. We have a better idea of playing that's very clear. We try to maintain this level and we're happy to keep going like this."

Bukayo Saka: "I thought we just tried to bring energy to the game. In the first-half it was all a bit slow, and they were defending really deep. They were really compact and we struggled to get through. In the second half, they couldn't match our energy."

Former Toon manager Graeme Souness: "They've not been losing games, so they've been avoiding the criticism that big clubs get. But they have to start winning. They got a couple of goals early in the second half and then went up a gear. Both Saka and Aubameyang said there that they brought more energy in the second period.The first half an hour of the first half belonged to Newcastle, but then Arsenal started to threaten. That continued in the second half but that would've been after Arteta had got at them. They had seemed a little bit passive. Once they got the first two goals, it became a procession."