Carling Cup: Newcastle United v Arsenal half time report
Newcastle 0 Arsenal 1
Arsenal have the lead at half time in the Carling Cup fourth round against Newcastle United.
Arsenal could have been three or four in front after some wonderful moves, but they scored a scrappy goal with seconds to go in the first half.
Carlos Vela in the opening seconds almost put Arsenal in front, while Nicklas Bendtner was denied by Newcastle ‘keeper Tim Krul at his near post. Both chances came in the opening minute, while Newcastle’s Haris Vuckic hit the side-netting to post his side’s first effort of the game.
Krul was called into action once again. This time it was Emmanuel Eboue who burst from right-back and hit the target. Arsenal continued to knock on the Newcastle door as Theo Walcott sprung beyond the defence and into the box but couldn’t find a teammate. A minute later, Bendtner scuffed his shot wide of the goal as Arsenal got into their stride very early on.
Nile Ranger broke away from the Arsenal defence and skipped around Arsenal ‘keeper Wojciech Szczesny with an open goal at his mercy, but by the time he found his feet, the Arsenal defence managed to close the shot down on 14 minutes.
A few minutes later Alan Smith from a long way out smashed a shot against the crossbar, with Szczesny getting the slightest of touches to divert the ball onto the woodwork.
Tackles were flying in from both sides, and one of them resulted in Kieran Gibbs coming off for Arsenal injured.
Bendtner weaved his way into the penalty area and got his shot away, but it didn’t have a lot of power to trouble Krul. Eboue again found himself having another shot, but made the wrong decision when he hit the side-netting rather than squaring for Vela.
Arsenal’s play in the opening minutes of the game appeared five minutes from the break, as Bendtner tested Krul out again with another effort on his goal.
The goal came in stoppage time at the end of the first half as Laurent Koscielny flicked the ball towards the goal, with the ball coming off Krul and off the line and then off the back of Krul's head.
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