Although Alan Pardew admitted his Newcastle side were not good enough to warrant getting anything out of the game against Arsenal, he never gave up hope that the Gunners would crumble when 3-0 up -- as they did to draw 3-3 against Anderlecht in the Champions League last month.
Olivier Giroud and Santi Cazorla both scored twice as Arsenal closed back up on the Premier League's top four with a 4-1 win over Newcastle at the Emirates Stadium, but the Magpies' boss was never going to throw in the towel.
"In terms of the two results the first goal was going to be more significant today; the fact they had got beat and we had a good result (in beating Chelsea last weekend),'' he said.
"I still felt, even at 3-1, that the game was in the balance. If we could have scored the second goal we had half a chance. The demons might have returned from Anderlecht, but we couldn't get ourselves into that position and probably didn't deserve to.
"Arsenal came out flying and had a really good purple patch and we were hanging on. We weren't as efficient with the ball as we have been.
"A lot of the credit has to go to Arsenal, they didn't give us a lot of time and they were quick. We grew into the game a little bit and had a chance to equalise that we should have taken.''