Arsenal took on Newcastle United at the Emirates this afternoon and Mikel Arteta‘s men picked up a comfortable 2-0 win.

The Gunners took their time to get going. Most of the first half was really slow and predictable. That made it fairly easy for the visitors, but we stepped it up in the second half, and we were brilliant.

Goals from Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli give Arsenal a really important win today. Here are five things we learned from the game…

Arsenal 2-0 Newcastle United: Five things we learned about the Gunners

Ramsdale saves us again

Arsenal’s win today was a fairly comfortable one when you just look at the scoreline, but we were underwhelming in most of the first half. We failed to take our chances, and on another day, we could’ve gone a goal down.

Jonjo Shelvey picked the ball up outside the ball and smashed a fierce strike goalwards. Ramsdale, like he has done on so many occasions this season, pulled off a magnificent save to keep the scores level at that point.

Had that goal gone in, things could’ve been very different. Thankfully, we held on and blew Newcastle away in the second half.

Get off Nuno’s back

Social media was filled with criticism of Nuno Tavares at half-time for having one shot too many at goal. He really wanted to score today, but all of his efforts were wide off target.

It really did feel like he would get hammered by a section of the fans after the game, especially if the result was a bad one. However, he really stepped up in the second half.

Tavares barely put a foot wrong after the break, and his assist for Saka’s goal was a brilliant one as well.

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Tomiyasu vs Saint-Maximin

Everybody knows that Allan Saint-Maximin is Newcastle United’s best player. The Frenchman is almost impossible to stop when he’s on the run, but Tomiyasu made it look easy this afternoon.

The Japan international wasn’t dribbled past a single time in the entire game. That’s an outrageous statistic, especially considering that he was up against one of the best dribblers in the country for most of the 90 minutes.

After having no luck against Tomiyasu, Saint-Maximin decided to switch flanks, but that didn’t quite work out for him either.

Praise for Gabi Martinelli

As soon as Saka went down injured, almost every Arsenal fan expected Nicolas Pepe to come on. However, Arteta turned to Martinelli and the Brazilian delivered after just 89 seconds.

Not only did Martinelli’s brilliant movement open up space for himself, but it also gave some room for Ben White to pass the ball to Tomiyasu.

The former Bologna man floated a fantastic ball into our number 35’s path and Martinelli made an incredibly difficult finish look easy.

Saka concerns

Like most of his teammates, Saka didn’t have that spark in the first half.

However, he came out a different man after the break and Newcastle could barely touch him. He scored a brilliant goal, but sadly, he went down injured a few moments after.

Arsenal face Manchester United on Thursday and an injury to Saka would be an enormous blow for us. He was walking around after the final whistle, which is positive, but it’s still a massive concern ahead of the game in five days time.

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