Newcastle v Arsenal: Premier League – live

Little under a year ago, these sides met at this venue with Newcastle – recently safe from relegation – disbursing a tousing that near-enough ended Arsenal’s Champions League hopes. So what’s changed since then? Well, a lot … but also not a lot.

To take Newcastle first, the indecent brutality of their performance that night remains the pro forma for everything they do – they repeated it in August’s thunderous 3-3 draw with Man City, still one of the games of the season – but there’s greater confidence and quality about them now. They still enjoy winning like a team unaccustomed to it – see the photos posted on social media after every positive result – but they now expect to be posing and rightly so. Eddie Howe has drilled the meanest defence in the Premier League – 27 goals conceded all season – and though they need to score more, there’s the sense that an improvement is well within their ambit given the age of their attacking players and ability to sign reinforcements in the summer.

Arsenal, meanwhile, have delivered a season way beyond what anyone expected of them. Helped by a favourable start which allowed them to build momentum, the consistency of their work before the World Cup was almost unprecedented and underpinned by a work ethic that had opponents struggling for air.

But again, though, they’ve faltered when it really got on top and must surely win today to maintain their dim prospects of a first league title since 2003-04. It’s easy to say they’ve bottled it again, a narrative that’s dogged the club for the best part of two decades, but the reality is less facile that that. In consecutive draws against Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton it felt like it was conceit rather than fear that did for them: first, they overestimated their reliability of their defence, backing themselves to see out a narrow advantage because they thought they could; then, they relaxed when in charge of a game, thereby inviting their opponents back into it; and finally started in the manner of team convinced victory was there for them and if they were good enough to turn up.

So now what? Well, Arsenal really need three points not so much to prolong the fanciful notion that the title race is still in progress, but to prove to themselves that they can beat a side of Newcastle’s calibre when they really have to. Should they fail, their run-in will show one win in six league games – a collapse by any standard, leaving lesions that may never heal. They know the chance offered to them this season – Pep Guardiola devising a new style, Jürgen Klopp building and Erik ten Hag settling – is unlikely to repeat next, and while they’ll doubtless back themselves to improve, there’ll be plenty of pain to process first. This is going to be intense!

Kick-off: 4.30pm BST