Newcastle knock Arsenal out of driving seat in top-four race

This time, Mikel Arteta will find the cupboard bare if he tries raiding it for complaints. He had been enraged by the decisions that brought Arsenal’s defeat to Spurs but this time there can be no obscuring the fact that, when they could least afford to blink, his team did not turn up. Champions League qualification is still possible but only if they beat Everton while Tottenham, surpassing even their own jittery reputation, are overcome by relegated Norwich. It remains a season of progress and the evidence is that, in any case, they are not quite ready for a place among the elite. A hungrier Newcastle were superior throughout and must wonder what 2022-23 will bring if they continue operating with this intensity and verve; Ben White’s own goal and a late Bruno Guimarães strike settled the affair but Eddie Howe’s team could have scored several more.

One of the biggest difficulties for Arsenal at the outset was that, while Newcastle are bogged down in mid-table, this felt nothing like a dead rubber for the hosts. An electric atmosphere greeted the players, as did a flag display: the sense is that, when everyone reconvenes here in August, the Magpies’ prospects for the season will be transformed. Expensive new arrivals will doubtless be welcomed, as far as consciences allow, but this was an occasion to celebrate the work performed in heaving the existing crop to safety.

It was a relief for Arteta, then, that White and Gabriel Magalhaes were both passed fit. There was surely some element of risk, given both centre-backs had been struggling with hamstring problems, but Arsenal could barely afford kid gloves. If Nuno Tavares’ selection at left-back offset the resulting sense of stability, it did mean the defence had a balance