Peter Hughes
Like every Arsenal supporter I settled down to watch the second half feeling that we could improve our goal difference yet further. To be honest I genuinely would have taken a dour second half as the points were in the bag. Newcastle came out to rough us up and Diaby fell for it. To be fair he has had plenty of injuries. In fact on his last comeback he took a heavy challenge which put him on the sidelines again. It is at times like this when fate conspires against you because I do not think any other player would have reacted that way. There would have been anger and some jostling but not the reaction that saw Diaby sent off. Phil Dowd could not wait to get the red card out and our worst nightmare unfolded before our eyes. Nolan put his hands on Diaby which should have been at least a yellow card. Dowd proceeded to give Newcastle every 50-50 decision but was certainly helped by our total capitulation. It was just wave after wave of black and white.
The first penalty, Koscielny got the ball through the legs of the attacker and he went down. Not a stonewall one but the ref can get away with giving that one. Nolan then grabs Szczesny around the neck and inconsistent refereeing sees him stay on the field. I totally agree with our editor that we should not have reached the point that allowed the ref to influence matters. Going down to ten men should not have seen us fall to pieces. It is difficult to criticize any individual as the whole team collapsed. Wilshere and Sagna worked hard to stem the flow but to be fair Newcastle could have scored a few more if Szczesny had not pulled off several saves. They even scored a good goal but luckily the assistant referee flagged taking the decision out of Dowd’s hands.
The second penalty was a joke. I cannot see any foul from Rosicky. Dowd must have been in a difficult position to see as surely his view was blocked by Koscielny and the Newcastle man. There is no way he could be sure, but no illegal contact was made anyway. I presume it could only have been given for a push, one that did not exist. We could have hung on at 4-2 but you knew if a third goal was scored we would not survive. I thought we might get a few chances on the break but we were totally overrun. Van Persie managed to find the net but a marginal offside decision chalked off a strike which on another day would have counted. My view was he was level with the last man.
Can the players recover from this? It felt like a 3-0 defeat and other teams will try and exploit our weakness. Perhaps we should have put everyone behind the ball when down to ten men? Not for the first time in recent years we have gone from world beaters to an absolute shambles in the same game.
