A swashbuckling display from Laurent Koscielny earned Arsenal a gritty win in the North East to earn his club a valuable Champions League place next season. The French defender weighed in with crucial contributions at both ends of the pitch to decide this uneventful but nervy encounter.

It enabled Wenger to keep up his remarkable record of qualifying for the tournament despite many people (including myself) thinking it was surely beyond him this time. A terrible season had seemed in terminal decline only 10 weeks ago as we sat seven points behind Spurs after they’d exposed our schoolboy defending at White Hart Lane. But that defeat brought about a belated rethink of our defensive approach and eight wins and two draws later we overhauled the old enemy to consign them to the Europa League once again.

This game was a perfect microcosm of the ‘new’ Arsenal — comfortable at the back with rare moments of anxiety whilst doing just enough going forward to nick a win. It was by no means a performance to drool over, but like many since we lost to Spurs it was a professional, disciplined display that got the job done.

Newcastle had started off quite brightly and had the best chance of the first half when Cisse swivelled smartly to fire a cut-back just over the bar. Arsenal had plenty of possession but weren’t creating much of note and would’ve been relieved to hear that Spurs were also drawing 0-0 as they headed in at the break.

Koscielny got the second half off to a perfect start when he hooked home a Podolski header following Walcott’s free kick and despite some lively running from Ben Arfa, the home side never seriously threatened Szczesny. Nothing else of note happened as the game petered towards a low key conclusion. In fact the most entertaining action came at the Lane where thousands of Spurs fans excitedly celebrated a Newcastle equaliser that hadn’t happened — how I laughed!

However, I wasn’t laughing when Bale smacked in another sensational winner in the 90th minute and Arsenal had four tense minutes of stoppage time to negotiate. Walcott fluffed a great chance to make the game safe on the break when he hit the post, but Newcastle lacked genuine quality and just couldn’t fashion a decent chance thanks to the excellence of Koscielny and Mertesacker and some good pressure from a hardworking team determined to finish fourth.

The final whistle brought relief for the traveling Gooners and players, who proceeded to celebrate on the pitch as if they’d finally won a trophy. If that wasn’t a perfect illustration of how standards have fallen at this club then I don’t know what is.

So credit is due to Wenger for overseeing an incredible turnaround and focusing his players for those final 10 matches. It shouldn’t mean the often unimpressive first 28 matches are forgotten (or the disappointing cup campaigns) but now is not the time to discuss that. I’ll be reviewing the season as a whole in another article once the dust has settled.

Right now it’s time to breathe a huge sigh of relief, salute the players and staff for rescuing our place at Europe’s top table and smile smugly at any Spurs fans we may meet over the summer.

When Theo Walcott latched onto Mikel Arteta’s pass to score after just 20 seconds, a convincing victory seemed certain. After all, we were playing the bottom side who’d been relegated with a whimper last weekend and hadn’t managed a goal in their last three games. Yet somehow it stayed 1-0 and Arsene Wenger celebrated a crucial, if unspectacular, three points.

We were certainly the better side by some distance, having 54% possession according to the BBC match report and controlling play comfortably albeit without fashioning many clear openings. Walcott was at the forefront of all our attacking moves and I can’t help but think that a more clinical player would’ve bagged a hattrick today. He was unlucky to see Rob Green palm a smart snapshot onto the post in the first half, but that apart the only times the dodgy QPR keeper was tested were from long range . . . continue reading this article.

There will never be a better time to play Manchester United. It looked as though their players had been partying all week and only put down their champagne glasses five minutes before kick off. That’s how off the pace they were for the first half hour and it’s a pity we didn’t take full advantage.

Robin van Persie was unsurprisingly the centre of attention as he took the field with the applause of Arsenal’s guard of honour ringing in his ears as well as the booing of 60,000 Gooners. Personally I feel it was disrespectful to boo the champions and classless to boo van Persie, but I will write a whole other post on this subject tomorrow.

Ironically it was van Persie who epitomised Man Utd’s slackness after just two minutes with a wayward pass that was quickly worked down the field to Theo, who advanced upon de . . . continue reading this article.

It’s a good job that results are the be-all and end-all at this stage of the season because there’s nothing positive to come out of today’s match other than the three points.

That’s not to underestimate their value of course — far from it. Most Gooners would happily take a win but no plaudits than be in Fulham’s position of getting nothing from a valiant and praiseworthy performance. It just doesn’t bode well for the remaining four fixtures that Arsenal could only scrape a lucky victory against 10 men who had nothing to play for.

You never know what type of Arsenal performance you’re going to get these days until the five minute mark. Will it be the frustrating, casual Arsenal who Everton ran rings around for the first half on Tuesday and which Norwich contained comfortably for 85 minutes? Or will it be the focused, motivated Arsenal that . . . continue reading this article.

Well, that was close. A supposedly ‘easy’ match at home to struggling Norwich was treated as such by Arsenal yesterday and they almost squandered the chance of applying real pressure to Chelsea and Spurs. Thankfully the introduction of Walcott, Podolski and Oxlade-Chamberlain injected some much overdue pace and tempo to our game and we ground out the win in an incredible last ten minutes.

But what preceded it was so frustrating. Following on from last week’s impressive victory at West Brom, the players obviously didn’t see the need to work that hard again against little Norwich. They didn’t bother to press their opponents high up the pitch and they knocked the ball around far too slowly, allowing Norwich to keep their very defensive shape with some ease. It was as if they thought a minimum amount of effort would suffice and as a result passes were misplaced, attacks broke . . . continue reading this article.