Whew. That was might close. Surprisingly, Arteta actually started the game today (wait, he’s fit?!). Remember that whole, not 100% thing I said before? Yeah. Well. Who has two thumbs and was right? This guy. Mikel was quickly subbed off (interesting that it was AOC at that point but why not) and thank goodness that didn’t come back to bite us in the arse. While there weren’t many lineup changes from last week, we looked quite a bit more toothless in this one. Look, I’ll admit, we don’t play well at the Toon: whether we had a good team or not and today was no different. We had some small chances here and there (Walcott’s botched flick hitting the post, cute but just put it in goal Theo Theo Theo) but Newcastle looked much more threatening (let’s just say the little kiddo wasn’t the only diaper I had to change at times).

And yet with all that nail-biting, we did what we needed to do: pulled out the V for Victory . Frankly, I found it quite timely opportunistic lucky par-for-the-course that Kols ended up netting our one and only goal off of a set piece (um, recall last year anyone?!). With his foot no less. But hell, a victory is a victory and we definitely had a tough match snagging an away win against a squad that did not want to embarrass themselves after Pardew’s truthful remarks.  Outside of our few threats, I really thought Newcastle was going to get a goal and we were going to have to wait out a tie (which would have pissed us all off given that Tater Totts were Bale’d out yet again).

All in all, I think we played a bit tentative given the pressure of the away game and the resurgent fight of our opponent. We (THEO) should have closed the game out with a second goal but our back line held up well and we were awfully dangerous on the counter attack. Thus, a well deserved/earned victory. Too bad it wasn’t for, oh I don’t know, an actual trophy. Just saying…