PA PhotosTheo Walcott celebrates putting Arsenal into a 4-3 lead

We saw a lot of the best and a fair smattering of the worst, of Arsenal on Saturday as they ended up spanking Newcastle 7-3 at the Emirates. Another remarkable scoreline involving the Gunners, but one to smile about at the end of 90 minutes.

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If we want to get the gripes out of the way, Jack Wilshere won't want to see replays of Demba Ba's free kick which he really should have been braver for, and the fact that he saw Sylvain Marveaux at the back post for Newcastle's second and did nothing to cover just isn't really good enough. Kieran Gibbs was aware of Ba for Newcastle's third but lost track of him which allowed the striker to steal in at the back post and equalise for the third time.

But nobody encapsulated the good and bad like Theo Walcott. He opened the scoring after Lukas Podolski's ball saw him beat the offside trap. The comparisons with Thierry Henry, as he drove into the box and finished with the inside of his right foot, are inevitable and impossible to argue.

The England man could have scored again but his left-footed effort was tame and when he had the chance to play in Santi Cazorla his pass was under hit and behind the Spaniard, allowing Newcastle to clear. Moments later the visitors were level through Ba's aforementioned free-kick.

In the second half he could have played in Podolski but chose to go it alone and his silly shot was always going wide. It was poor decision making and that was highlighted almost immediately as Newcastle equalised. Between his first and second goals Walcott's contribution was questionable, to say the least.

But at the end of the game how can you argue with a man who scores a hat-trick and creates another? He spanked home Arsenal's fourth, and when Giroud had replaced Oxlade-Chamberlain put in a fantastic cross - from the right hand side, no less! - for the Frenchman to head home from close range. It was from a Walcott run that Giroud picked up the ball for his second and Arsenal's sixth, and quick feet late on saw him complete his hat-trick with a delicious dinked finish past Tim Krul.

The contract issues remain - and it's not simply a case of the club bending to his demands - but he's certainly playing like a man who has something to prove ... to someone.

Arsenal fans will rightly be worried about some of the defensive play (not as worried as Newcastle fans should be about their team at the moment), but in front of goal the chances were taken rather than spurned and it was interesting to see Giroud come on and score two goals which you would associate with a more traditional centre-forward.

The Gunners also took advantage of the fact that Newcastle's midweek exploits against Manchester United left them with tired legs going into the final twenty minutes of the game and that kind of ruthlessness is certainly a positive.

What the result, and indeed the performance, shows more than anything else is that with the right purchases in January Arsenal could be a much stronger team. Four wins in a row is good form but doesn't disprove all the issues the team has had through the season. It's important that Arsene Wenger accepts his team still needs some work, and if he can find the right players then it augurs well for the second half of the season.

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