It was a first leg of the Carabao Cup semifinal for Arsenal to forget as Alexander Isak’s goal and assist powered Newcastle United to a 2-0 victory at the Emirates Stadium, but while Mikel Arteta gave Newcastle credit for their performance, the Arsenal manager also thought that there was another issue at play for the Gunners’ poor finishing — the actual match ball.
Arteta does think that his players can turn it around on the away leg on Feb. 5 but that they’ll need to adapt to the “tricky” ball in order to do it. Unlike the Premier League, the Carabao Cup uses a Puma Orbita 1 while a Nike Flight football is used in Premier League play.
“It’s just different,” Ateta said about the ball after the game. “Very different to a Premier League ball, and you have to adapt to that because it flies differently, when you touch it, the grip is very different as well so you adapt to that.”
Habits can make it tough to adjust to slight differences like the ball but when Arsenal took 23 shots creating an xG of 3.12 but only put three of those on goal to test Martin Dubravka, it’s a little more than just the ball. Arsenal’s Premier League play has been better outperforming their xG for their last five matches since drawing 0-0 to Everton but also none of those teams faced were of the quality of Newcastle United.
Doing their best to keep Arsenal from taking shots in the box, Eddie Howe’s defense limited space to where he wanted the Gunners to take shots from and it worked out. To overturn this deficit, Arsenal will need to ensure that the second leg is played on their own terms despite it taking place in Newcastle’s home stadium.
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