Newcastle United dropped points in their bid to qualify for the Champions League next season as they were beaten 2-0 by Arsenal at St. James' Park on Sunday in the Premier League.
The referee made a big call in the opening ten minutes by awarding a penalty for Jakub Kiwior appearing to handle Bruno Guimaraes' strike from the edge of the box. However, the official overturned his decision after being sent to the monitor to see that the ball hit the thigh of the defender.
Shortly after, Martin Odegaard gave the Gunners the lead with a sublime strike from distance. The Norway international collected the ball from 25 yards out and lasered a shot past Nick Pope.
Alexander Isak came within inches from equalising in the 48th minute as his header came crashing back off the post from Jacob Murphy's cross.
Arsenal sealed all three points in the 71st minute as Gabriel Martinelli raced away down the left flank before flashing a cross in that deflected into the net off Fabian Schar.
How did Callum Wilson perform against Arsenal?
Whilst it was a disappointing result for the Magpies and far from one of their best team performances of the campaign, Callum Wilson – in particular – struggled with his role at the top end of the pitch and must be dropped next weekend.
The England international was brought back into the starting XI after scoring twice off the bench against Southampton last time out, which resulted in Isak moving out wide, but failed to justify his selection as his display left a lot to be desired.
He was tasked with causing problems for Kiwior, who only arrived in England in January, and Gabriel at the back for Arsenal but simply failed to do so.
As per Sofascore, Wilson only created one chance for his teammates and did not register a single effort on goal in his 78 minutes on the pitch.
The 31-year-old was also bullied out of the match by his opponents. Indeed, the forward lost five of his six (83%) individual duels with this leading to him having just 19 touches of the ball – fewer than Pope's 33.
That damning statistic sums up Wilson's performance and illustrates how much the £92k-per-week attacker struggled to impact the game. His lack of physicality in duels with Kiwior and Gabriel meant that the striker did not have enough opportunities to showcase his quality.
This display must now lead to the Englishman being dropped from the XI for the clash with Leeds next time out as having Anthony Gordon and Allan Saint-Maximin available to play on the left means that Isak can be selected in his natural position if Wilson drops to the bench.
He did not do enough against Arsenal to justify keeping his place in the starting line up against the Whites and Howe now has some big selection decisions to make heading into that game.
