Where to even start after yesterday, eh?

I think I want to be broadly positive today, because when you snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat with a last minute goal in extra time, then you have to be feeling positive rather than dwell on some of the negatives. So I’m going to get those out of the way first I think.

Jarred Gillett should not be allowed to officiate Arsenal again. Or at least for a considerable period of time. He’s refereed/been involved in four of our six Premier League matches so far this season and considering he is not allowed to referee Liverpool because he is a fan of theirs, common sense should prevail with clubs who are competing with Liverpool. That includes us, it includes Man City, for sure, because even though I don’t think he is intentionally biased against us (or potentially City) it opens up the question of being compromised and that isn’t good for football.

Yesterday he and VAR took every opportunity to rescind the penalty that Gyokeres won. I watched Match of the Day (obviously) last night and Joe Hart made some gaslighting comment about how Pope’s foot was square and not moving towards the ball and that’s why this was different to last weekend’s sending off of Robert Sanchez when he fouled Mbuemo in the United vs Chelsea match. Sorry, but that’s bollocks, because both situations were almost identical. Both were penalties. Any come back from people talking about how ‘Pope touched the ball’ I will simply respond with the retort that if that had happened anywhere else on the pitch it would have been a foul be cause Gyokeres got there first. If a player goes in two-footed on another player but ‘he wins the ball’ do the officials do nothing? If Pope hadn’t initiated contact with Gyokeres, could the Swede have rounded him and put us one up? I tell you this much – Big Vik wants to score goals and if he’s got the chance of rounding the ‘keeper and tapping it in, he’s taking it.

That was on 14 minutes but before then Arsenal had already created two or three really good chances and were unlucky not to be a goal up at least. We played superbly in that first half. Eze was moved centrally and did what he does: he got on the ball, he was dictating play, he forced Pope in to a number of really fine stops. But it was not just Eze getting into this game. Trossard was unlucky to his the inside of the post, Saka forced Pope into a smart save in that first half and Arsenal were showing that they’d came to St James’ Park with a point to prove. We can argue the toss about poor officiating (the pathetic and pernickety show from Gillett to stop Calafiori from using a towel in the first half is one example), but Arsenal came to play and they were brilliant in that first half I thought.

Which is why it felt so typical that Newcastle would score with basically their first attempt of the game. Mosquera had a bit of a poor shank to give Newcastle a corner from nothing (he was hooked at halftime which if it was for that reason felt a little harsh), but they worked a corner well and Woltemarde was relatively unmarked in an uncharacteristically bad bit of organisational defending from Arsenal. I can’t be having Gabriel’s complaints for a foul with a push by Woltemarde; he barely touched him and we were behind going in to the half. There was a suggestion that Gabriel was lucky to stay on the pitch and maybe that can be said. But on the basis that I’ve heard on Sky with the ‘you can’t raise your hands to an opponent’ angle, I find it a little disingenuous of the media to be picking up on that issue, whilst ignoring the fact that Lascelles basically covered Gyokeres’ face with his hand and pulled him to the ground with it. On Sky they said “he probably should have gone down” – well Gyokeres DID go down and nothing was done.

The second half mostly played out exactly as we thought it would. It played out exactly as the last three or four defeats there have done: Newcastle sitting in a low block, compact shape, asking the question of the Arsenal players to respond. And for the most part it was a frustratingly slow and ponderous watch. We created some chances, but it always felt as though this would peter out to yet another 1-0 defeat and the same wounds would be left open about our inability to finish these teams off, tinged with an annoyance of yet more refereeing controversy.

But we have to hand Arteta some flowers today, because just like last weekend he acted with his substitutions and just like last weekend, they made the difference. First it was Martinelli for Saka which made sense as they are managing him back to full fitness, but the move to bring Calafiori off and bring Merino on to give us an extra attacking threat in the box worked perfectly, given he scored the equalising goal through a superb ball in from Rice. But on 82 minutes Arteta went further and brought on Odegaard for Calafiori, to effectively play as a deep-lying playmaker and as Gary Neville called him in commentary, the ‘quarter back’ role. It worked. Eddie Howe even said that changed the game and Odegaard was involved in the move that was well worked for the equaliser, then he was the one that swung the ball in for the winning goal on 90+7 minutes minutes. It was a perfect corner into the exact spot that Gabriel wants to be to attack the ball. I do think Pope was poor in terms of his positioning, but there’s not an Arsenal fan in the world that cares about that this morning.

Pandemonium. Everywhere. In the gods at Newcastle. In my house. In Arsenal pubs all over the world. It was amazing. This was a game that had gotten away from us. This was a big match that we had succumbed to again this season. This was the talk in which people said the challenge of Arsenal is wavering because when Liverpool slip up, we don’t capitalise. Except on this weekend, we did. We’ve come through an incredibly hard period in which we’ve played some really difficult games both away from home and at home and we are in touching distance of the leaders. Given the context of our injuries too, it makes it all the more impressive and those Arsenal players going in to work tomorrow after their day off will be bouncing.

Next up we need to do the job against another old familiar foe in the Champions League: Olympiacos await on Wednesday.

Amanda and I did a ‘vibes’ pod straight after the game that you can watch here if you fancy drinking in more of the joys of yesterday’s win. It’s here. Ill be back tomorrow as we look ahead of Champions League match week two.