Goli Innocent 
Saturday’s clash at St James’ Park could have a major say on the title race Newcastle host, Arenal could have a seismic impact on the Premier League title.
However, a large amount of attention will be placed on the action in the technical area.
Eddie Howe and Mikel Arteta are among the most animated head coaches and both of last season’s fixtures brought flashpoints that ended with the Newcastle boss being accused of hypocrisy.
The first game at the Emirates concluded with both squaring up to each other over a contentious refereeing decision. It may have been a scoreless draw but Howe and Arteta had a frank exchange of views that may have contained language unsuitable for a young audience.
Arsenal had pleaded for a penalty when they thought Jacob Murphy had handled the ball inside the area. But when it was not given Arteta and some of his backroom team made their feelings known to the officials. That irked Howe and a row followed.
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Before the return leg at St James’ Park, the Newcastle boss sought to play it down.
“Within a game, you’ll always have moments where you come up against opponents and there’s a bit of confrontation I think that’s natural, that’s part of the job but there’s certainly no issues on my side,” he said, before praising his opposite number.
“You have to admire everything that he’s done, whether that’s recruitment, coaching, everything. So a lot of respect from me to him.”
Yet the meeting on Tyneside in May, which Arsenal won 2-0, left Howe irritated again as he pointed towards what he perceived was gamesmanship from the visitors.
Aaron Ramsdale was accused of taking too long over his kicks while Granit Xhaka earned howls of derision from the home fans for going down injured on several occasions.
“They managed the game well from their perspective,” Howe said. “They slowed it down, lots of breaks in play, which was frustrating for us. Naturally, we wanted the ball in play more. Especially when you’re chasing the game.
“But we have to look at what we can control. We can’t control that. That’s the referee’s job. What we can control is taking our chances and possibly defending better than we did today.”
Asked about it afterwards, a furious Arteta delivered a curt response: “For sure, our team is not like that.”
Except complaints from Newcastle about ball-in-play time seemed rather rich when at the time their games throughout the campaign had less ball-in-play time than any other Premier League side.
“We are so used to a lot of things – that we as well do,” Arteta said of whether the dark arts will be present again today.
“We know that every team tries to use tactics and manage the game in the right way for themselves. It’s not something new we will try to get better at everything for sure. [Hopefully] this will be something very minimal from the game – I think.”
