‘It was tough’: Dan Burn admits 26-year-old Arsenal player’s positioning caused Newcastle problems last night
Dan Burn says the positioning of Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko caused Newcastle problems at times last night.
The Magpies drew 0-0 at the Emirates Stadium to keep a sixth consecutive clean sheet but they had to weather storms in both halves.
That was especially the case in the first half when Bukayo Saka was getting space to operate, up against Burn who recovered well.
He told Newcastle’s official website that 26-year-old Zinchenko pushing into midfield created an overload and room for Saka to play.
Burn on Zinchenko
Burn said: “It was tough because Zinchenko was coming into midfield, which was meaning that we were five v four at back.
“So I was having to come in a lot on (Martin) Odegaard, so Saka had quite a lot of room.
“I thought second half we probably didn’t press as high as we did first half so it was a bit easier as the distances weren’t as much.
“But Saka is a great player.”
The Sky Sports punditry team covering the game felt that Burn might have given away a penalty for a shirt pull on Gabriel in the second half.
It was a fiery game, with a number of yellow cards handed out as the referee struggled to keep control of it, but yet that incident did not get pulled back, even by VAR.
Arsenal may view the result as two points dropped in the title race, but it was still a good performance against a side bang in form.
Newcastle again showed they can mix it with the big boys but will be looking to offer more attacking threat in this type of game in future.
