Arsenal make Premier League history as Newcastle dealt rare home loss

Arsenal overcame a raucous atmosphere to beat Newcastle United 2-0 at St James’ Park on Sunday to keep their faint Premier League title hopes alive. Express Sport runs through four key talking points after the Gunners showed Manchester City they have plenty of fight left on Tyneside.

Traditional rivalry reborn

There aren’t many, if any, Premier League stadiums more daunting to go to for a big game than St James’ – and the atmosphere before kick-off and in the opening stages showed exactly why.

A sea of flags surrounded the players as they entered the pitch, followed by a deafening rendition of ‘God Save The King’, and the noise didn’t die down from there.

Crunching tackles were flying in left, right and centre, with neither team pulling their punches as tensions flared on and off the ball throughout the game.

It didn’t just feel like a big game. It felt like a traditional Premier League rivalry between two giant clubs near the top of the table was reborn. Both should be playing Champions League football next season.

Odegaard makes history

If it weren’t for Erling Haaland’s record-smashing numbers in his maiden campaign at Manchester City, Martin Odegaard would be nailed on for the Premier League Player of the Season award.

The Norwegian midfielder is on fire, netting five goals in his last five Premier League outings, and opened the scoring with a stunning low strike after 14 minutes.

After Odegaard joined Gabriel Martinelli on 15 league goals, Arsenal have had two players hit that milestone in the same season for the first time in their history.

It’s a credit to the attacking firepower Mikel Arteta has among his ranks.

Newcastle experiment fails

Eddie Howe raised eyebrows for including both Callum Wilson and Alexander Isak in his starting line-up for the first time.

Both strikers have been producing goals en masse in recent weeks, helping Newcastle cement their top-four status.

But fielding Wilson and Isak together ultimately didn’t pay off, with the latter the more dangerous of the two.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see the Magpies revert to two wingers on either side of a main focal point next time out, especially after Allan Saint-Maximin’s return to action.