They have matched Manchester City stride for stride once again but as Mikel Arteta surveys the aftermath he may well wonder: at what cost?

Both his match-winner Eberechi Eze and his starting centre-forward Kai Havertz came off injured in this game, and there is no time to spare with Atlético Madrid awaiting in the Champions League semi-final first leg on Wednesday. This was an Arsenal performance that suited the circumstances – and those circumstances are that they are tired and reticent to commit too many forward.

Arteta would not commit to a diagnosis on either player, discussing in both cases “muscular niggles” and that the early signs were not too serious. Havertz walked straight down the tunnel when he came off in the first half while Eze watched the rest of the second half from the benches following his withdrawal on 53 minutes. As for Arteta, he was lost in the moment raging against a red card not given to Nick Pope that replays suggested was the right decision.

Arteta’s team would win the game from a corner again, but instead of Gabriel Magalhães steaming in at the back post it was a short corner routine that worked on the third attempt that delivered the ball to Eze’s toes in a pocket of space.

Arsenal are back at the top of the Premier League, and there is next week’s home game against Fulham to come before Manchester City play again. For all the set-piece planning, it was Eze’s sublime skill for the goal on nine minutes, swept in with his right foot, and it can feel like Arsenal are rationing out those moments of inspiration from here to the end of the season. They certainly seem reluctant to score any more goals than is absolutely necessary.

Arteta punched the air at full time – a manager who is strung as tightly as anyone in the stadium – and that is saying something. The mood soared and plummeted by the second as they watched Arsenal defend a one-goal lead for the best part of 90 minutes when time added on was factored in. When Havertz’s replacement Viktor Gyokeres broke through at the end with Arsenal attackers outnumbering their opposition the feeble pass from the Swede was met with a collective groan.

There was at least the first sighting of Bukayo Saka, back in action as a second-half substitute for the first minutes since the Carabao Cup final defeat more than a month ago. Arteta said that he would embrace the agony of the final four Premier League games. “We are where we are,” he said, “I don’t expect, after 22 years of not winning it, that it’s going to be a path of roses and beautiful music around us. It’s going to be like this [the Newcastle game] and we will be ready for it.”

For Eddie Howe this is now five defeats in a row, four of them in the Premier League although this one less damaging than some of the others. It is that elusive edge in front of goal that his team seek. William Osula missed a chance in the first minute and from the bench Howe would send on Yoane Wissa, Nick Woltemade, Harvey Barnes and Anthony Elanga in search of the equaliser. There was no Anthony Gordon, missing through injury, and yet this was not a Newcastle team who were anything other than committed.

The 80th-minute chance for Wissa, created by a delicate chip from Woltemade over the defensive line, was arguably Newcastle’s best. “I thought today was much better from us as a group of men,” Howe said. “We stood up to the physical challenge much better off the ball. It was a much better defensive performance … performance-wise I am much more satisfied with that.”

Newcastle were still in it through seven minutes of injury time but the problems for Howe are clear. His team have won just three Premier League games since the start of February. The home game against Brighton on Saturday is a big moment in the Howe years.

It could have been very different if Osula had made contact with an opportunity that opened up for him in the first few seconds of the game. Martín Zubimendi lost the ball in midfield to Joe Willock and suddenly Osula was in the inside-left channel and running at goal. It was not a hard strike, the ball slightly off the line of his run, but he shied at it with his left foot and failed entirely to make contact.

Contrast that with the technique with which Eze dispatched the game’s only goal nine minutes later, with Thomas Tuchel, the England manager, watching. The short corner routine was something the team are forced to do, Arteta said, when opposition adapt. Howe had picked Dan Burn ahead of Lewis Hall at left-back, presumably to add some height and muscle to Newcastle when defending and attacking on set-pieces.

“The thing that I like best is the courage of the players,” Arteta said, “because we play short [from the first three corners], and you can see our reaction in the crowd. We did so well with the reaction. The second one, we did it again, and Ebs [Eze] shoots with his left foot and puts it out.

“And the third one, I was going to say another word … [but instead he says] courage. Big courage. In this moment, when the pressure is on, when the reaction is like this to play, that’s exactly what I want for the team. Because the players have to make the decisions, and I believe it’s the best.”

This time the ball went to Havertz inside the area and then on to Eze unmarked who struck a glorious shot fading away from Pope’s dive and into the inside-side of the Newcastle goal. David Raya would have to save a Sandro Tonali shot from the edge of the area with enough movement to trouble the goalkeeper. The home crowd was on edge. Noni Madueke was chastised for not chasing down Bruno Guimarães hard enough. Gyokeres would later be applauded for doing that much better with Tonali.

It would be Gyokeres chasing another loose ball when Pope slipped way outside his area and decided that he had to pull the Arsenal striker down. Presumably Pope had seen the covering run of Malick Thiaw which meant that referee Sam Barrott judged it rightly to be a yellow card and not a red – not that Arteta agreed.

Arteta calls out ‘red card’ not given

Mikel Arteta said that Arsenal’s opponents were saved from what he said was “a clear red card” for the second week in a row after Newcastle United goalkeeper Nick Pope was only booked for pulling down Viktor Gyokeres outside his area.

The video assistant referee (VAR) Jarred Gillett checked referee Sam Barrott’s on-field decision and found no reason for a review, with Gyokeres appearing to be covered by the run of defender Malick Thiaw. Arsenal won the game 1-0 through Eberechi Eze’s goal to go back to the top of the Premier League, and were leading on 74 minutes when Pope slipped as Gyokeres chased a ball that the goalkeeper would have reached first.

Bringing the issue up unprompted in his post-match press conference, Arteta said that it had been the same against Manchester City the previous week.

“I have to say, as well, in my opinion, it’s a clear red card,” Arteta said. “I’ve watched it 10 times. If you have ever played football, it is a red card. It’s the second time in two games because I guess Manchester City, when Kai Havertz goes through, [Abdukodir] Khusanov fouls him, 1-1, the title is there. It is a red card, guys. So these are the margins as well and hopefully that’s going to change.”

Asked why Barrott did not give Pope a red card, Arteta said: “I don’t know, they will have their opinion, I’m here to give my opinion and somebody that has been in the game for a long time, and you talk to any of the players, because the trajectory where the ball is, there’s no keeper there. If that were to happen the other way around, it’s a red card.

“I’m saying the reality of the last two games, in crucial moments when everything is at stake, we need everything to go our way, and it hasn’t. I’m not putting [out] any excuses, I’m the first one to understand, I didn’t talk about it when we lost the game, I’m doing it when we won, it’s a red card. Today, it’s a red card in Manchester, and the world is different. That’s it.”