‘Revenge’ game: Doc replay fired Arsenal to win

Mikel Arteta said Arsenal were motivated by revenge in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Newcastle United after watching a video of last season’s painful defeat in the same fixture.

Martin Odegaard’s 14th-minute strike and Fabian Schar‘s 75th-minute own goal were enough to give the visitors a priceless win that cuts Manchester City‘s lead at the top to one point, albeit having played a game more.

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Newcastle beat Arsenal 2-0 last May on a hugely damaging night that essentially cost them Champions League qualification, the aftermath of which was caught on camera by Amazon’s “All or Nothing” documentary of the Gunners’ season.

The players held a team meeting earlier on Sunday, during which they watched footage of the match again and Arteta believes this proved the catalyst for their much-improved display on Tyneside.

“We had to feel it,” he said. “It wasn’t enough just to talk about it, we had to feel it, we had to see it, we had to recognise our faces. Not just the players but what it meant for the staff as well. That’s football. You can win or lose but that feeling that we didn’t do enough on the day, we had to put it right.

“I was looking at the video so I didn’t see their faces. You don’t have to be genius to see it. The word was ‘pain’ and then the desire for revenge. I think they had that today in their bellies.

“When you have question marks you have to resolve them straight away. When you have the emotions we had last year in that dressing room, you have to feel them again, realise how nasty they are and then find a way to approach the game differently because demands were going to be different from last year.

“The boys did that extremely well so I’m really proud of them.”

Goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale epitomised Arsenal’s steel, making several world-class saves at crucial moments. He said the collective memory of what happened at Newcastle last year had been a massive motivation.

“Immense pride and relief, especially after what happened here last year,” Ramsdale said. “It wasn’t mentioned up until the meeting before we left the hotel. The manager showed us the video of the documentary and we had a burning desire that it wouldn’t be the same today.”

City still hold an advantage at the top of the table, but their domestic run-in is complicated by a two-legged Champions League semifinal against Real Madrid starting on Tuesday and Arteta hailed a victory that will turn up the pressure on their title rivals.

“[It shows] that we are there, that we want to keep digging,” Arteta added. “The prize is there, not too far. The only thing we can do is keep insisting and not turn our backs and lose focus on something else. Be determined every single day. Let’s keep going and see what happens.”