Newcastle vs Arsenal. 30/11/96

Newcastle (1) 1 - 2 (1) Arsenal

St James's Park. Saturday 30th Nov 1996

FA Carling Premiership

Teams:

Arsenal - Lukic Adams (sent off 21) Keown (Morrow) Bould
          Dixon Winterburn Vieira Merson (Parlour) Platt
          Wright Hartson (Linighan)

Newcastle - Srnicek Peacock Albert Elliott Batty
            Beardsley Lee (Watson) Gillespie Ginola
            Shearer Asprilla (Kitson)

scorers:

  Shearer             Dixon, Wright

Arsenal took to the field once again without the injured Dennis Bergkamp, and with most of the rest of the team having looked rather jaded in the midweek match at Anfield. But a hugely spirited team performance following the dismissal of our captain, together with some exceptional individual performances, won this - arguably the biggest match of the season so far.

The first attack of note was a great effort by Merson, tipped over by Srnicek just a few minutes in. Shortly after, Peacock just missed with a stooping effort of the back of his head from a cross by Ginola. After 8 mins, Srnicek made another good save from Merson. A sweet move from Hartson to Wright to Merson, when Wright could have tried for a shot himself. Then Keown lost his footing allowing Asprilla to get to our dead ball line but his cross across the box failed to find anyone.

Then on abotu 12 minutes Wright put a cross over from the left hand side of the penalty area and Dixon headed it past Srnicek.

Much jubilation for awhile, but then with virtually their first effective attack, Shearer equalised. Ginola's cross was deflected into a lob but even so there was no excuse for giving Shearer so much space.

Almost immediately from the restart, there was an incident that changed the game. Adams brought Shearer down ont he edge of the box. Despite there being other defenders around, and despite the fact that the ref could have blown for offside against Aprilla just before, the ref showed Adams the red card. Wright was also shown the yellow card for dissent. Shearer took the free kick, which was deflected towards goal and Lukic saved well.

After 30 minutes Linighan came on for Hartson to restore the 5 man defence, and on 39 Shearer had a good penalty claim turned down.

At the start of the 2nd half Kitson was on for Asprilla. Shearer was giving Linighan a hard time, and found space in the penalty box several times in the first half. The couple of times he got a good head to it, though, he placed it too close to Lukic who was having a good game.

On 60 minutes, Arsenal scored a classic breakaway goal. Merson's shot was actcidentally blocked by Wright in the box. The ball bounced away but Wrighty was first to react and slotted the ball past Srnicek. That's jis 163rd goal for Arsenal : 16 to go for the all-time record!

Fearsome pressure for most of the rest of the game, naturally! We had one good chance when Wright took a pass from Vieira and went off on a solo run finishing with a chip just over the bar. Keown went off with a worrying injury - could be a hamstring. Morrow came on for him and went into central midfield with Vieira dropping back to centre half.

Ginola, who got booked for diving in the penalty area (well I never) was repeatedly going down and demanding yellow cards as he bounced back up. He succesfully got both his old mate Dixon and Merson booked int his way. It contrasts nicely with a certain Mr I Wright, a true gentleman of football who restricted his protests of this sort to complaining about Beardsley's booking ie asking the ref NOT to book an opposing player. Dixon was stretchered off in this incident and we spent several of the closing minutes with 9 men.

But we made it. 2-1 at St James's with 10 men for the last 69 minutes. Top of the league.

report (from the radio) by Rupe. More reports to follow

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