By Bulldog Drummond
So we have just won three league games in a row and Newcastle have just drawn one and lost two in the league (see the last article for more details: Arsenal v Newcastle in the FA Cup: the injury situation is unprecedented
What’s more, we have scored eight, and they have scored one in our respective last three games. And we have a full squad to choose from while they have five players out.
Perhaps surprisingly however the games between the two clubs are more equal than you might imagine given the difference in prizes won. We have won 79, and they have won 67 of the games between the clubs. 38 have been drawn.
However in the league they have won the top division four times to our 13. Mind you that means they have won it twice as many times as Tottenham. Newc’s last win was in 1927.
In the last 10 years however it has been pretty much one way traffic between Arsenal and Newcastle. The December 2012 game was quite good, and so here’s a video
And here are the results
| Date | Match | Result | Score | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 05 Feb 2011 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | D | 4-4 | Premier League |
| 13 Aug 2011 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | D | 0-0 | Premier League |
| 12 Mar 2012 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 29 Dec 2012 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 7-3 | Premier League |
| 19 May 2013 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 29 Dec 2013 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 28 Apr 2014 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 3-0 | Premier League |
| 13 Dec 2014 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 4-1 | Premier League |
| 21 Mar 2015 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 1-2 | Premier League |
| 29 Aug 2015 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 02 Jan 2016 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 1-0 | Premier League |
| 16 Dec 2017 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 1-0 | Premier League |
| 15 Apr 2018 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | L | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 15 Sep 2018 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 1-2 | Premier League |
| 01 Apr 2019 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 2-0 | Premier League |
| 11 Aug 2019 | Newcastle United v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 16 Feb 2020 | Arsenal v Newcastle United | W | 4-0 | Premier League |
So they haven’t won at our place for a long old time (7 November 2010 in fact) and we’ve just won four in a row and 14 out of the last 15.
Overall in the FA Cup Newcastle have done quite well. Not as good as us of course (under half our number of wins) but ok, compared to a lot of other clubs.
| Club | Wins | Last final won | Runners-up | Total final appearances |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arsenal | 14 | 2020 | 7 | 21 |
| Man U | 12 | 2016 | 8 | 20 |
| Chelsea | 8 | 2018 | 6 | 14 |
| Tottenham | 8 | 1991 | 1 | 9 |
| Liverpool | 7 | 2006 | 7 | 14 |
| Aston Villa | 7 | 1957 | 4 | 11 |
| Newcastle | 6 | 1955 | 7 | 13 |
Obviously Manchester United will be wanting to catch us up, but they won’t be able to do it this year no matter what happens. Tottenham, who pride themselves as a great cup team (well, they can’t pride themselves on anything in the league having only won it twice) will also want a win in the competition for the first time in 20 years.
Curiously it took us five attempts to beat Newcastle in the FA Cup, finally managing in a replay in 1936. In their last final they beat Manchester City.
Anyway, we are very much the FA Cup team in form having won four of the last seven FA Cup finals. That is not a record as Chelsea have won four out of six in recent years, but they have slipped back from contention of late with just one win in the last eight finals.
In this century the only times a club outside the “big six” has won the FA Cup were in 2008 when Portsmouth beat Cardiff 1-0 and in 2013 when Wigan beat Manchester City 1-0. Although perhaps the most enjoyable final in which Arsenal were not playing came in 1988 when Wimbledon beat Liverpool 1-0.
Steve Bruce is a manager I normally have a lot of time for but he seems to be in a moaning mood, or else the journalists are just deliberately writing it up that way (one can never tell of course).
But maybe he has a point since if Arsenal had had a mega coronavirus outbreak we’d be complaining if we just had to carry on. He has claimed it is “morally wrong” for football to continue at this time, and perhaps that wasn’t his best phrase. Mixing football with morality always seems an extremely dodgy line to take to me.
At the moment we have had Aston Villa and Derby playing their under 23 teams in the Cup, and games have been called off, but now The Premier League has warned it could discipline clubs if they do not act over breaches of Covid-19 rules.
But really, England is a country where people break the law all the time. Just drive along the M1 outside of the section where the overhead cameras are, and over half the cars you’ll see will be breaking the speed limit – which is as dangerous as ignoring virus regulations. That’s what we do in this country, so why should we expect footballers to be different? Or come to that people in general following virus regulations.
However that’s just my perspective. I suspect everyone else disagrees.
Up next: the teams.
Arsenal v Newcastle in the FA Cup: the injury situation is unprecedented
We’ve completed the latest round of analysis of referee behaviour and club responses:
- 1 How clubs manipulate referees through their tactics
- 2 Proving unconscious bias by referees is rife in the Premier League: penalties
- 3 Revealed: How clubs have evolved their “referee handling” tactics with such success
- 4 How the impression refs have of certain clubs influences how they are treated
- 5 How clubs developed the fourth type of match fixing in the Premier League
- 6 How some clubs manipulate referees and journalists to their own advantage
- 7: Referee tactics and why Arsenal are in the bottom half of the table
I’d have to disagree with your choice of best Cup Final in which Arsenal weren’t playing and chose the year before i.e. 1987.
Living in Coventry at the time, it was great to see them win their only major trophy by beating the Spuds 3-2 having come from behind twice and I have to say I joined in the celebrations with considerable ease.
For anyone who remembers the wonderful OG in extra time that won it for Coventry, they still have a fanzine entitled Gary Mabbutt’s Knee 🙂