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Newcastle, United Kingdom | AFP | Arsenal crashed to a fifth consecutive away defeat in the Premier League as Matt Ritchie fired Newcastle to a 2-1 win at St James’ Park on Sunday.
Arsene Wenger’s side took an early lead through Alexandre Lacazette, but Ayoze Perez equalised before Ritchie bagged the second half winner.
Newcastle’s fourth successive win ended Arsenal’s unbeaten run of seven games in all competitions.
#NUFCvAFC pic.twitter.com/HaLyVkqcK7
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) April 15, 2018
The sixth-placed Gunners are 13 points behind fourth-placed Tottenham with only five games remaining in the race to qualify for the Champions League.
Realistically, Arsenal already had no chance of making the top four and Wenger had been prioritising their Europa League campaign for several weeks.
Arsenal saw off CSKA Moscow in the Europa League quarter-finals on Thursday.
They face Atletico Madrid in the last four and will qualify for the Champions League if they win the competition.
With little to play for in the league, Arsenal were unable to find enough momentum to maintain their recent revival, even though Lacazette opened the scoring in the 14th minute.
Just moments after he was left writhing on the turf following a crunching challenge from Kenedy, Lacazette exacted revenge.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ran onto a long ball into the Newcastle area and picked out Lacazette, who stretched to volley home at the far post for his 13th goal of a difficult first season following his move from Lyon.
A loose ball falls to Ritchie and the Newcastle forward tries his luck from 25 yards – but it’s well off target#NUFCvAFC ⚫⚪ 1-1 ? (66) pic.twitter.com/wXlkHXVCKb
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) April 15, 2018
Alex Iwobi almost doubled Arsenal’s lead moments later with a stinging strike that forced a good save from Martin Dubravka.
Jonjo Shelvey’s long pass picked out Dwight Gayle in the Arsenal area and, with Gunners defender Shkodran Mustafi out of position, he was able to lay off to DeAndre Yedlin.
