29 December 2012

You might think that a win by 7-3 against Newcastle would leave even the most fanatical and gnarled anti-Arsenal journalist finally showing some remorse and admitting Arsenal could do well, or at least be entertaining.   But no.   When Arsenal beat Newcastle on this day in 2012 by seven goals to three, celebration of positive football and general rejoicing at just how far the game had moved from the dire days of goalless draws, was there none.

There was much focus on the notion that Theo Walcott (as we were told in virtually every media outlet) was out of contract in the summer and liable to leave on a free.  And in the early stages Newcastle kept on pegging Arsenal back, as each time we scored, so they scored. Our last four goals came because they were tired from a heavy schedule.

Alternatively Arsenal should and would have had eight had Giroud not been so profligate – he hit the bar after we had seven.

The fans were miffed about Walcott too (according to the media) and the chant of “Sign him up” at the end revealed the fans growing frustration with Mr Wenger rather than a celebration of Theo’s skills.  At least according to the media.

Indeed as Jonathan Pearce of the BBC put it, “Seven goals for Arsenal, three for the excellent Theo Walcott. Arsenal need to sign him up.” 

Oh yes and it wasn’t that good anyway, because Newcastle hadn’t won away all season.  And they had four days less than Arsenal to prepare for this game which was hardly sporting.   And had Ba not headed just over from Marveaux’s corner, well it all could have been so different.

And what’s more Arsenal were lucky that Newcastle played a high defensive line. 

Besides Bacary Sagna conceded a needless free-kick outside the box and Ba’s set piece showed how lucky Arsenal were.  Indeed it could have gone either way had Newcastle just been able to steady themselves at 3-3.

In fact Arsenal only won because Newcastle tired.   And the Arsenal goals were all soft goals (the Newcastle manager, a Mr A Pardew, said, and was fulsomely quoted in this regard.

Beside Newcastle had just played Manchester United on a very heavy pitch and they were tired after that game.

Yep, according to the media it was clearly a very lucky 7-3 win for Arsenal.  What would we do without those journalists on hand to set us straight?  Oh yes, and please don’t mention that at this point Arsenal were the second highest scoring side in the league.

Oh yes and we’d already had other results such as…

But no, best not mention that. At least, most of the media didn’t.

You can find a list of all of today’s Arsenal anniversaries, with lots of additional detail and a video of one of the historic games of today on the AISA Arsenal History Society Site.