I wish I was a fly on the wall in the Arsenal dressing room at half-time on Sunday because I think a lot of the difference between their first and second-half performance was down to the kind of motivation from the manager that I am talking about.
It was the same at Anfield last week, when they were 2-0 down to Liverpool at the break and Arteta told them he was not accepting that level of performance. They were not behind against Newcastle this time but they could have been, and he deserves some credit for how they turned things around again.
Like Wenger, Arteta has got his lieutenants – the players he can rely on – and Declan Rice stepped up again on Sunday. You could tell he was short of full fitness because he was blowing a bit but Arsenal needed him, and he delivered.
There was a bit of a cup final feel about the game because Champions League qualification was riding on it for both teams and of course there was an edge to it, with Newcastle beating Arsenal three times this season already.
They needed to be put to bed, really, and Arsenal did that in the second half – even if the game still had quite a tense ending.
I don’t think Arsenal fans were exactly celebrating second place at the final whistle but it is still quite an achievement for them to get back into the Champions League for a third straight season, after they were away for six years.
When you consider where Arsenal were when Arteta took over in 2019, I think he has done an amazing job.
Injuries have massively impacted them this season, but it still feels like we have got our Arsenal back – they are on the right path, and the trophies he craves will follow.
Martin Keown was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
Match of the Day 2 pundit Martin Keown compares Declan Rice to David Beckham after the England international scores with a curling strike from outside the box in Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Newcastle at the Emirates.
The win confirms a second-place finish in the Premier League and Champions League football next season for the Gunners.
We’ve all heard it. The derisory chant from opposition fans when one of the so-called ‘big guns’ is having an off day.
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Six English teams will qualify for next season’s Champions LeagueCredit: Getty
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Either Tottenham or Man Utd will earn Champions League qualification this season despite finishing 17th or 16th in the Premier LeagueCredit: Getty
For example, Southampton supporters had every right to aim it at the multi-billionaires of Manchester City last weekend, when they couldn’t find a way past the worst team in the Premier League.
Only now what was once a mildly amusing terrace jibe sums up perfectly what the leading club competition in the world has become. A joke.
Next season there will be a record SIX English teams in the Champions League.
Almost one third of the entire Premier League will be waved straight into the bizarre league phase by Uefa’s welcoming doormen at an empty small town disco on a wet Tuesday night.
Anyone can come in. From Liverpool who finished top, right down to hapless Tottenham or abject Manchester United hovering above the relegation zone.
It is time to officially ban the phrase ‘elite competition’ whenever the Champions League is mentioned on TV and radio or written in print.
There was a time when you had to win your domestic league to progress into the highest level of European football the following season.
From winning five Premier League games in a row, they went winless in the next five and couldn’t string a pass together.
They lag 20 POINTS behind the bona fide champions of England from Anfield and are fifth.
Don’t bet against them being in next season’s Champions League.
The constant tinkering and chiselling away at a once simple game has led to Uefa getting its knickers in a right old twist.
Fifth in this year’s Premier League grants a free pass into the treasure trove of the Champions League thanks to the coefficients which measure success where once it was about winning.
A whole page is devoted to thrill-a-minute ‘coefficients’ on the governing body’s website to explain how a system that would baffle Stephen Hawking’s much cleverer cousin actually works: “Uefa calculates the coefficient of each club each season based on the clubs’ results in the Uefa Champions League, Uefa Europa League and Uefa Conference League.
“The season coefficients from the five most recent seasons are used to rank the clubs for seeding purposes (sporting club coefficient).
“In addition, the season coefficients from the ten most recent seasons are used to calculate revenue club coefficients for revenue distribution purposes only.”
And that’s just the overview.
There’s a gag in there somewhere about how many coefficients does it take to ruin a game of football? Only I can’t see a funny punch line.
There was a time back when the world was black and white in the 1950s when two imaginative French journalists took inspiration from South America and came up with the idea of the best clubs from each country competing for a trophy on our continent.
Ironically, it wasn’t called the Champions League back then. It was the plain old European Cup. A cup fought over by teams in Europe. Simple eh?
Liverpool’s first steps into the European Cup came in 1964, our sole representatives having won the league the previous season under Bill Shankly.
Next season they share the honour with five other English teams and some of them are pretty ordinary.
If Spurs win the Europa League and follow it up by winning the Champions League next year, the champions of Europe will come from a team currently 17th in England’s top division.
You can argue it won’t happen. Yet somehow a side which has lost more league games than it has won this season is in a European final next week.
That’s cup football for you and it’s a wonderful lottery. Qualification for the Champions League is not. It’s a boring carve up.
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The top five teams in the Premier League will qualify for the Champions League due to European coefficientsCredit: AFP
