Rafa Benitez’s side will only have a point to their name when they head for Selhurst Park on Saturday, but he will not be looking at the table too closely just yet.
He added: “I will keep an eye but I will not spend too much time looking. I knew that it could be like that, so it’s a question of making sure that everybody understands that, and then we have to move forward quickly, and mentally we have to approach the next training session thinking — OK — we need to improve this, this and that.”
While Newcastle continue to struggle to deliver the results to get them out of trouble, Arsenal made it three wins from three to climb up to seventh in the table.
Unai Emery is in the process of changing the way Arsenal operate following Arsene Wenger’s departure and he was indebted to Granit Xhaka’s stunning free-kick that opened the scoring in the 49th minute.
Ten minutes later Mesut Ozil added a second to mark his 200th appearance for Arsenal in perfect manner. The German international said: “Really, 200? I’m happy but most important we take the three points. Congratulations to the whole team, we played well. Newcastle were good, aggressive. We showed our passion and took the points.
“I am very happy to play for Arsenal and especially for the new coach. He knows what he wants and the team accepts that, we have a good relationship. We score and we are happy, even the players that don’t play, we are all team.”