GOODBYE MESUT
Gunners hit top form as the post-Ozil era starts in style
ARSENAL 3 NEWCASTLE 0
EMILE SMITH ROWE drifted effortlessly left while his brain picked out the players behind him.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had his shooting boots on again.
Even Cedric Soares was flicking nutmegs with the back of his heel. Who needs Mesut Ozil?
The misfit sent his best wishes via social media as he sets off to start a new chapter in his career in Turkey.
In his absence, Arsenal produced the sort of display the Emirates fans would have loved had they been here.
Probably for the best, though, that nobody was allowed to make the long harrowing journey down the A1.
This was a fixture that was always going to play right into the deepest fears of Newcastle fans. Steve Bruce was making his 18th trip to the Gunners as a manager without ever having won any of them. Newcastle themselves had only scored one in their past seven visits.
Indeed, in the past 15 Premier League meetings between the sides, Arsenal had won 14 of them.
Arsenal were looking for a fifth successive clean sheet for the first time in 12 years; Newcastle had not won in their past eight attempts.
Bruce’s somewhat abrupt assessment of his players’ shortcomings in last week’s 1-0 defeat by Sheffield United could have gone either way.
But in a tentative first 45 minutes, they generally seemed willing to respond for him.They even had a shot – a crack from Miguel Almiron as Arsenal players backed off him which whipped inches over the bar. Predictably, it was largely another defensive detail, with the hosts enjoying the majority of possession. Aubameyang should have given them the lead inside 15 minutes after excellent work from Bukayo Saka forced Karl Darlow to save with his foot. However, instead of turning the loose ball into the net, the Gabon international somehow contrived to strike it against the inside of the far post.
In the third-round FA Cup tie between these two, it had needed extra-time to separate the teams. This time all it needed was a halftime Mikel Arteta pep-talk. There was nothing Newcastle keeper Darlow could do in the 50th minute, when Thomas Partey’s long ball picked out Aubameyang and Emil Krafth never got close enough to him to prevent him from drilling in only his fourth league goal of the season.
By the hour mark it was all over. Excellent work by Smith Rowe down the left ended with the perfect square ball to Saka to double the lead.
A poor Newcastle corner led to the first goal; an equally tame cross preceded the second.
Bruce, left, could be forgiven for pointing out to the Newcastle fans the perils of bothering to attack some of the best Premier League teams at all.
Instead, he will probably be spending the week listening to more complaints.
Another Newcastle turnover led to Aubameyang’s second, Soares just keeping the ball in play before picking him out in front of goal with a pull-back in the 77th minute.
After all, it takes all types to make up the Premier League – not that this game told anybody anything they did not already know.