Jamie Carragher was left in disbelief at David Raya after Arsenal conceded a second goal away to Newcastle United on Wednesday, ending any slim hope of a dramatic aggregate turnaround. Already 1-0 down at St James' Park and needing three to get level in the second leg, Anthony Gordon's finish sealed the tie.

It marked a third win with a clean sheet for Eddie Howe's side over Arsenal this season with the last two coming in the Carabao Cup semi-finals. Newcastle won the return match 2-0 at the Emirates Stadium to put themselves in a strong position at the halfway stage.

After Alexander Isak's disallowed opener on Tyneside, Jacob Murphy put Newcastle ahead on the night and in a commanding aggregate position. Before Arsenal could even think of mounting an unlikely comeback things were dragged out of their sights by Gordon.

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He capitalised on Fabian Schar's aggressive press, slotting in past Raya after Declan Rice had lost the ball on the edge of his own box. In a similar manner to Martin Odegaard's goal against Manchester City at the weekend, Newcastle took advantage of Arsenal's attempts to play from the back.

For Carragher, posting online after the game on X (formerly Twitter), he had seen enough. "Keepers need to be banned from playing those passes into midfield players," he wrote.

Following on from a number of high-profile mistakes this season across the Premier League - often from Southampton but Chelsea and Brighton have also been culpable many times, Carragher has described the straight pass into a midfielder as the worst and most dangerous one in football.

Arsenal, as a side committed to maintaining possession and keeping control, will regularly benefit from these moves as they progress the ball forward. On this occasion it proved their downfall but having missed a host of chances to score themselves across the previous game-and-a-half with Newcastle, it was profligacy at the other end which really cost the Gunners.

Speaking after the game, Arteta elaborated on the issues at play. "They've been really effective in the box in the last two games that we've played against them and we haven't," he said. "Overall, that was the main difference

"It's true that today we've been a bit more unsettled, especially when the game became more chaotic or when they were very direct with their play. Normally we are much more composed, today we lacked a bit of that and the game went away from us."