The £72m record signing’s arrival off the bench was of potentially far greater significance for the Gunners than the 1-0 victory over Newcastle United

A substitute appearance lasting 20 minutes plus injury time and 10 largely unremarkable touches may not seem like much, but in them were encapsulated Arsenal’s reasons for optimism. In time, Nicolas Pépé will script his own narrative and will be judged on those terms but, for now, his value is largely symbolic. The £72m record signing is the totem for this new age for Arsenal. His arrival from the bench was greeted with a huge roar from the Arsenal fans gathered high in the Leazes End and his presence was enough to transform an essentially workaday Arsenal win into something of potentially far greater significance.

For 58 minutes at a wet and gently mutinous St James’ Park, Arsenal perhaps wondered whether the optimism of deadline day had been justified.

As they so often were last season, when they picked up only 25 points away from home – the worst record in the top six – they seemed vaguely tentative. But then Ainsley Maitland-Niles capitalised on a slack pass, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored and the picture suddenly looked much brighter.

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Yet this was still a side with a pre-season feel. Perhaps seven of this side would not expect to start if Unai Emery had a full squad available and was not hampered by injuries and a lack of match fitness among his new signings. As well as Pépé, Dani Ceballos and Gabriel Martinelli, two of the other summer arrivals, were given their debuts.

In practical terms, at least as important as the promise of the new men was the clean sheet. Arsenal kept only one away from home last season but here, after two first-half chances from Joelinton, they were barely threatened, with Maitland-Niles outstanding at right-back, calm in his defensive work and lightning fast when he broke forward.

Context, of course, is essential. Newcastle United lost 11 of their 12 games against the top six last season. Arsenal won here 2-1. This is a Newcastle side with plenty of problems of their own and very few obvious answers to them. Nobody should think this result or performance is anything like enough to begin to suggest that Arsenal are back. For much of the first half they were flat, as though a combination of the home team’s high press and the persistent rain had unsettled them.

But the goal changed everything. It was the result of Maitland-Niles’s alertness to intercept Paul Dummett’s pass to Jetro Willems, his pace and the quality of his delivery, which is not always a given, and then Aubameyang’s finish. Other than that, and one precisely weighted chipped pass over the defensive line from Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Aubameyang in the first half, there was little in the way of creative coherence.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ainsley Maitland-Niles (left) was outstanding for Arsenal, calm in his defensive work and lightning fast when he broke forward. Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP/Getty Images

It is expecting a lot for Joe Willock, who had started only two league games before this, to operate as the central creator. There were some neat touches and a general air of alertness but his wider impact was slight. Reiss Nelson had his moments at Hoffenheim last season, admittedly largely from the bench, but was involved only fleetingly here.

And then there is Mkhitaryan, who continues to be a frustrating presence. His through-pass for Aubameyang was superb in both conception and execution but again and again he gave the ball away cheaply – 12 of his 45 passes failed to find their target. And that is without mentioning his bizarrely clumsy finish as the ball fell to him following Nacho Monreal’s 23rd-minute run. That the same player can be responsible for both a touch as deft as his chip to Aubameyang and such a clunking finish defies belief.

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But the truth is that none of that really matters. Two of those three are teenagers and none of them are likely to be regular starters. That is the oddity of this performance and the likely reaction to it. The three points are important but they were secured with personnel unlikely to be much involved in the coming weeks.

What was actually impressive about it, what brought the win, what was a marked improvement in last season, was the professionalism to dig in and get the win, ruthlessly to punish a slight slip to pinch the goal and then stifle Newcastle. But the importance of the victory is in inflating the sense that there is a bold new Arsenal in production.

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Just as Pépé at the moment feels a player more important for what he symbolises than what he is, so the victory was important more for maintaining a sense of Arsenal’s upward momentum than for the specifics of how it was achieved.