For a lot of an overcast Tyneside evening Arsène Wenger wore the dissatisfied expression of a man forced to travel to Europe by cramped budget charter flight rather then first-class private jet.
Terrifying only sporadically from available play, his slightly jaded-looking Arsenal players don't exactly arrive in that Champions League in style but the main thing is that, for some sort of 16th successive season, they've at least as far as August's play-offs.
Along with Wenger's team struggling to be able to translate control into plans, winners can rarely need proved more priceless than Laurent Koscielny's scrambled, close-range decider. As being the final whistle blew, Wenger, eventually wreathed in smiles, hugged your partner's staff, players and quite possibly Alan Pardew, a managerial rival with whom she has not always enjoyed the most cordial of technical spot relations.
Seconds earlier your property manager had applauded your opposing bench, a exquisite gesture that, nonetheless, may well only have intensified your pain felt by her club's backroom staff. Mike Ashley, Newcastle United's proprietor, had promised everyone through the St James' Park tea ladies for the kit-man a share in a £1m bonus if Arsenal were beaten and several employees must have felt if you have a winning lottery ticket had just been blown from their hands by a capricious, particularly cruel, breeze.
Judging by Newcastle's recent home form – featuring nine goals conceded in the earlier two games here next to Sunderland and Liverpool – cynics may possibly say Ashley had taken a distinctly low-risk gamble but i thought this was a sufficiently improved results from Pardew's players to, at times, threaten to help part him from their cash.
Early signs were certainly not entirely encouraging for Wenger. The moment when Fabricio Coloccini most too comfortably knocked Theo Walcott journey ball and the ease with that your overlapping Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa dodged Per Mertesacker leading to a home left-back unleashed a dangerous cross do not bode well for the visiting manager's reassurance.
If they were mighty relieved to see Papiss Cissé shooting fractionally above the bar after connecting your cross, Wenger's players had already realised they were up against an awfully different Newcastle side from the sorry ensemble of recent surrenders anterior to the Gallowgate End.
Wenger's Champions League objective was hardly aided simply by Pardew's decision to configure his team inside the flexible 4-3-3 formation which invariably seems to add much needed fluency to be able to Newcastle's game.
A mild afternoon had begun to turn a little chilly nevertheless, perhaps feeling the heat involving potentially being forced to a most unwanted Europa League diversion by Tottenham Hotspur, Wenger removed his jacket. The much less subliminal message was that Arsenal was required to roll up their fleshlight sleeves.
They almost took some sizeable step towards a lot more coveted Wednesday night fixtures against sides like Barcelona and Bayern Munich when ever Walcott saw a free-kick deflect out of Coloccini and sail fractionally wide to a post.
Steve Harper, Newcastle's 38-year-old third-choice goalkeeper taking part in his final game for any club after 20 a long time at St James' Playground, looked suitably relieved. In the future, as the electronic clocks clicked on to 37 – the goalkeeper's shirt number – and E James' Park offered him a marvelous, spontaneous ovation Harper has been spotted wiping away some tear. As "only one Steve Harper" echoed across the ground all those seasons spent sitting over the bench understudying Shay Given and, more recently, Tim Krul, must have seemed fully more than worth it after all.
By then Wenger's scowl lines had deepened inside the wake of some heavy limping on Mikel Arteta's part. With the gamble to the influential midfielder's fitness using failed, he was replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
The newcomer found himself facing opponents whose starting XI incorporated five of his manager's compatriots. Concerning that French quintet Hatem Mary Arfa, especially, provoked assorted problems in a visiting defence in which unfortunately Koscielny held commendably firm despite the fact that Mertesacker still seemed irritated.
Impressive throughout at one another end, Coloccini and Steven Taylor guarded Harper admirably, leaving the goalkeeper possibly slightly disappointed to be so underemployed during a tight first half in which the better half-chances fell to help Newcastle. Worryingly for Wenger, Arsenal weren't their usual selves inside open play and, with Cheik Tioté cramping most of Santi Cazorla's customary innovation and Aaron Ramsey's gives regularly going astray, Lukas Podolski remained over the game's periphery.
Harper's slapdash clearance at the outset of the second 50 % of had Geordie hearts within mouths but when Walcott shot low with the bottom corner, the goalkeeper extended a hand and, finger-tipping this to safety, redeemed themself leaving Taylor to clear as Cazorla homed around.
Harper though was soon enough picking the ball out of your net and Wenger not only putting his jacket rear on but buttoning it up. Significantly, Arsenal's goal originated from a set piece, Koscielny hooking home from three meters after Mertesacker headed at Walcott's free-kick.
Arsenal were finally in charge and slowing the game down at every opportunity. Yet as news television through from White Hart Isle that Gareth Bale previously had finally scored for Tottenham, Wenger : who offered Jack Wilshere a good late cameo -looked rueful when Walcott's shot rebounded benignly off a post and relieved as Olivier Giroud made a surprisingly effective sport fishing tackle to deny Ben Arfa. A neutral dropping with from Mars or Venus would never had guessed that Newcastle directly avoided relegation, but single games really do not reflect entire seasons. Like Pardew acknowledged: "We needs to have done better. " Fortunately for Wenger, Arsenal had done adequate.
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