Arsenal star makes Newcastle United admission - 'it gave us extra motivation'

Martin Odegaard revealed Arsenal played with "extra motivation" against Newcastle United following their 1-0 defeat at St James' Park three months ago.

In November, Gunners boss Mikel Arteta was left raging at the decision to allow Anthony Gordon's winner, which was subject to three VAR checks, to stand - but his side got revenge at the Emirates on Saturday night.

An own goal by Sven Botman plus strikes from Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka and Jakub Kiwior put Arsenal 4-0 up before Joe Willock pulled one back inside the closing stages.

"It gave us the extra motivation today [losing to Porto midweek] also what happened against Newcastle last time [1-0 loss at St. James Park] gave us that extra motivation," said Odegaard. "We just wanted to come here and make a good game and give the fans a good game.

"Today we were so aggressive, Jorginho and Declan Rice were good at threading between the lines - that was the difference.

"We want to play in the final third and create things all the time. We have been playing a few different ways and I have been dropping a bit more and Jorginho and Declan have done that today - I played a little higher up."

The Gunners took the lead in the 18th minute when Botman scored an unfortunate own goal before the lead was quickly doubled by Havertz.

Newcastle started the second-half better but Saka's goal in the 64th minute killed any hopes of a comeback. It then became 4-0 when Kiwior scored from another Arsenal corner.

Willock, making his first appearance since November, added a consolation goal for United.

"I think we had a great performance, big credit to the boys after just half a day to prepare for the game," Arteta added. "The way they executed everything - the intensity, the commitment, the determination, the aggression and progression in everything that we were doing with the ball. They played with a lot of courage against the team and we got rewarded. I think we fully deserved to win the game.

"The team is hitting form, we are in a good moment, the players individually are performing. It’s not any secret things are flowing at the moment, we are scoring goals in various ways, and we want more. We score one and we want to go for the second and third and the fourth one and I love that mentality from the team."