FA Premier League
ARSENAL 1 (Rice 55)
NEWCASTLE UNITED 0

HERE was a final home league game of the season which perhaps illustrated the story of a disjointed and disappointing campaign.

Arsenal have rather stumbled over the line in the pursuit of second place and it was no surprise that a deadlocked match against the team looking to leapfrog them in the last knockings was settled by an individual moment of brilliance rather than the controlled dominance of the last two seasons.

Newcastle United had come to the Emirates eager to repeat their Carabao Cup victory on this turf but were undone by Declan Rice’s power kick ten minutes into the second half.

In truth, either side could have won this game and David Raya had made four wonderful saves in the first period to stop the Gunners falling behind and the Magpies will probably have joined Arsenal in the Champions League by this time next week.

Raya reacted well to deny Bruno Guimaraes, Harvey Barnes, Dan Burn and Sven Botman inside the opening 20 minutes as Eddie Howe’s side threatened to make the breakthrough.

Mikel Arteta’s defence was sturdy and his attacking players were busy, but the invention which brought them back as championship contenders in recent years has been missing.

So often Gabriel Martinelli or Leandro Trossard get to the edge of the opponents’ penalty box and seem to run out of ideas, while Martin Odegaard has lacked his pinpoint passing that once unlocked so many defences.

This has left Arsenal relying too heavily on set piece goals, which dried up in the final months of the season, and spectacular moments like the brace scored by Rice to sink Real Madrid last month.

When they go in, as one did again today, they are picture perfect but you can’t expect to win a title if you need to conjure up the near impossible every weekend.

And when they are not going in, Arsenal risk, at worst, appearing both toothless and boring. The need for new recruits, especially in attack, has been staring every fan in the face.

Arteta, nevertheless, was taking a third second place finish in his stride. There is no hint that the board think he has gone as far as he can and this is his ceiling. And the manager is right to say that many other clubs would love to regularly be the second best team in the country.

He said after this match that he could not guarantee he would go one better next season, but he would do everything he could to do so. This is when the serious deja vu was perhaps most apparent. Arsenal have become a team, after all, that looks a little sheepish and subdued when walking the corners of the pitch in a lap of appreciation.

They are desperate to get rid of their nearlymen tags, and might well need to do if they want to retain their most talented players.

“We had a dream  to deliver a big trophy this season for our people and because I think the team deserved it as well in the journey that we’ve been together in the last three or four years,” he said.

“We haven’t achieved that and there are a lot of factors. There’s a lot of incredible things this club is doing, the team is doing, the players are doing, the way we are competing and the consistency that we are showing. I know they don’t want us there, where we are now, knocking on the door every year and make sure that we can see clarity.

“We stay very disciplined and very clear and ambitious with what we want to do in the summer.”

With a summer spend pending, Arteta said the backing of the board was “not something new”. He added: “I think they always back the team, the club, in the best possible way, and it’s not going to be different in the summer.

“We have to be very smart with the decisions that we take. Obviously we need players because the squad is really short, and on top of that, we are losing four or five players that end their contracts and their loans are finished. So we need to be sharp, again very disciplined in what we want to do and make sure that we are strong in the season.”

ARSENAL: Raya, White, Lewis-Skelly, Saliba (Calafiori HT), Kiwior, Partey, Rice, Odegaard (Jorginho 90+3), Martinelli, Saka (Havertz 76), Trossard (Tierney 88)
Substitutes not used: Neto, Zinchenko, Sterling, Nwaneri, Henry-Franks

NEWCASTLE UNITED: Pope, Burn, Botman (Krafth 64), Schar, Livramento, Tonali, Guimaraes, Murphy (Miley 63), Barmes (Willock 76), Gordon, Wilson (Osula 63)
Substitutes not used: Dubravaka, Ruddy, Lascelles, Longstaff, Neave