Some of Eddie Howe’s comments on how Arsenal played in their 2-0 win over Newcastle United yesterday are a little hypocritical.
Mikel Arteta’s men didn’t start the game well. The hosts were the better side in the first 10 minutes, but we stepped up after that and completely deserved to win.
Howe seemed to have a problem with Arsenal‘s game management after we took the lead yesterday. That’s funny because Newcastle did the exact same thing at the Emirates in the reverse fixture, or worse.
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What Eddie Howe said about Arsenal slowing the game down vs Newcastle yesterday
Newcastle United vs Arsenal yesterday was a feisty affair, wasn’t it?
Challenges were flying in from the very first minute, and Newcastle tried their best to unsettle us by making the game extremely physical.
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That resulted in the likes of Granit Xhaka and Gabriel Jesus among others going down in pain, and they had to receive some treatment on the pitch as a result.
We’re not saying some of it wasn’t exaggerated, it was, and Arsenal did waste some time when we had the opportunity to do so. Howe was not happy with that.
The Newcastle boss said in his press conference after the game: “It was frustrating from our perspective. We wanted the ball the play, we wanted to find our rhythm. It was very stop-start. That was suiting, of course, the away team.
“As the home team, you want the ball in play, so it was frustrating in that sense for us, definitely. They managed the game well from their perspective. They slowed it down, lots of breaks in play, frustrating for us.
“Naturally, we wanted the ball in play more especially when you are chasing the game. But we have to look at what we can control. We can’t control that, that’s the referee’s job.”
That’s a little hypocritical
We understand how frustrating it must be for a manager to see an opponent slow the game down, break play up with fouls and ruin any sort of momentum that could be built.
Howe definitely is entitled to voice his frustration, but when Arsenal fans did the same thing after the reverse fixture – when Newcastle wasted as much time as they possibly could – the Magpies boss wasn’t this bothered, was he?
He said at the time: “We are not here to be popular and to get other teams to like us. We are here to compete and to compete, we have to give everything to try and get a positive result. I’ve got no issue saying that. That is our job and that’s what we’re going to try and continue to do.”
Well, as they say, what goes around comes around. Arsenal did what we had to do yesterday and we got the job done. Howe’s comments about the same, especially after he defended what his side did at the Emirates in January, feels a little hypocritical to us now.
