Xhaka rewards Arsenal’s grit yet Newcastle can take heart

In the rush to draw conclusions, in the dash to judge managers, the first casualty tends to be context, which is why Arsenal should not be excited by victory over Newcastle and why the Magpies need not be too despondent after defeat.

Results are all that matter, as we know, yet in September they can also be misleading.

Arsenal have won three games on the spin and have secured backto-back victories on the road, providing manager Unai Emery with a timely boost in his quest to prove he is a better man for the job than his predecessor, Arsene Wenger.

There was a resilience and a grit about Arsenal that certainly bodes well. Newcastle had seven corners and a similar number of free-kicks in the first half, but the Arsenal defence, supposedly suspect when it comes to dealing with set-piece pressure, coped admirably.

Yet, Arsenal were poor before half-time, their attacking players were subdued and a better team than Newcastle would have punished them. They only started to play with any fluidity once they had taken the lead, courtesy of a magnificent free-kick from Granit Xhaka, just after the break.

They looked assured after that, adding a second goal from Mesut Ozil, which masked another largely ineffectual display from him until that point.

Arsenal were not impressive but they got the job done and to win two away games in a row, when you had just one in the entire calendar year up to this point, is progress. Yet, context tells us those victories have come against Cardiff City – who scored twice against them – and a Newcastle team badly weakened by absentees, who also lost captain Jamaal Lascelles to injury at the interval.

Which brings us to Rafa Benitez’s side, who have not won a game this season. It is their worst start to a Premier League campaign since Ruud Gullit departed in 1999.

A disastrous summer in which Benitez’s refusal to sign a new con-