What would Kevin Keegan give for a goal half as good as the one scored by Mathieu Flamini last night? What would he pay for a counter-attack as swift as that which set up Emmanuel Adebayor? Hell, what price the artless long ball by Gaël Clichy that ended with Cesc Fàbregas scoring Arsenal’s third? Newcastle United would take anything right now. A fluke, a deflection, a dodgy penalty. Good grief, it need not even cross the line. Just give them a goal.

It is 394 minutes since a Newcastle United player last found the net in the Barclays Premier League and there have been 270 goalless minutes under Keegan’s stewardship. Unless there is a dramatic improvement on this performance, who knows when that run is destined to end? They had chances, but too few and far, far too late. By the time Nicky Butt hit the bar with a free kick and Shola Ameobi blew an opportunity after being left one on one with Manuel Almunia, Newcastle were trailing by three and the game was long over.

Worryingly, Arsenal had coasted their way to victory again. Newcastle had a dress rehearsal for this match on Saturday in the FA Cup fourth round, yet nothing changed. The same scoreline, the same one-sided encounter. Keegan had the time to come with a plan B, to spring a few surprises and make Arsenal think. Instead, Arsenal were allowed to sleepwalk to three points — and return to the summit — with disquieting ease.

It was not the margin that should alarm, more its comfortable nature. When the game was still live, a goal for Newcastle seemed as unlikely as a smile from Chris Mort, their chairman, in the directors’ box. Sitting next to Dennis Wise, the latest high-profile acquisition in Mike Ashley’s reshaping of the club, Mort did not look much like a man with a plan. A migraine, maybe.

On the bench, Keegan, too, appeared increasingly restless. His arrival usually brings a lift in spirit but at Newcastle it has brought one mediocre home draw, two crashing defeats on the road and no goals. His team are light years away from producing the sort of football now taken for granted at Arsenal when they used to be the byword for creative flair, and as the goals went in, as Arsenal moved effortlessly from defence to attack and finished with style, he cannot have helped but wonder how he is going to get these clubs on an even keel. Newcastle have an England striker in Michael Owen, but he barely got a kick. Every time the ball fell to Adebayor, Fàbregas or Alexander Hleb, by contrast, sirens should have sounded.

And what about Flamini, scorer of the goal of the night? He is meant to be a defensive midfield player, yet he popped up on the fringes of the Newcastle penalty area to collect a short pass from Fàbregas and unleash a 30-yard guided missile that left Shay Given clawing at the moist night air.

There was little doubt about the outcome by then, but, just to make sure, Fàbregas finished Newcastle off eight minutes later. Clichy played a long ball to Nicklas Bendtner, the substitute — his scrap with Adebayor now consigned to history — and, allowed to play on even though he appeared to be offside, he laid it off for Fàbregas to beat Given with a first-time shot. Newcastle attempted a reply through Butt but were left with little more than derision for their efforts. The home fans baited Keegan, who just looked unhappy, like Tigger with the bounce taken out. It used to be his team that set the standards, after all.

He has no equivalent of Fàbregas, of Adebayor, certainly no one such as Hleb, surely the most ambitious player in the Premier League with his devotion to the eye-of-the-needle pass. Hleb’s modus operandi would appear to be: think of the hardest ball to play and then try it. This makes him a frustrating player, too, because when his plan fails — as it will sometimes do — it invariably brings a flowing Arsenal move to a premature halt. Yet when Hleb is successful he turns a meandering half-chance into a certain goal. Always on the lookout for the impossible, Hleb’s dream set-up does not take a defender out of the play but an entire team.

Charles N’Zogbia has been one of Newcastle’s most consistent players this season but he was given a horrid time by Hleb on the flank, just about every memorable Arsenal move in the opening 45 minutes coming down his side. When the opening goal finally came in the 40th minute, it was no surprise that a swift exchange of passes on the right left Newcastle exposed.

It was a classic Arsenal counter- attacking move. Hleb started it in unfamiliar circumstances, scuffling like a midfield terrier in the Wise mould before feeding the ball to Fàbregas. His neat wall-pass sent Flamini away and a surging run took him beyond N’Zogbia and a flat-footed posse of pursuing midfield players, whipping in a ball for Adebayor at the far post.

The striker had been working intelligently all game to lose Newcastle’s central defenders and pit himself against Stephen Carr, the diminutive full back, and the scheme came off perfectly, the ball in Given’s net before he had a chance to dive. It was bravura Arsenal and must have made Keegan long for the days when he had a team capable of football such as that; memories that must seem as distant as his debut for Liverpool, or his first digs as an apprentice at Scunthorpe United.

Arsenal (4-4-2): M Almunia – B Sagna, W Gallas, P Senderos, G Clichy – A Hleb, F Fàbregas, M Flamini, A Diaby (sub: Gilberto Silva, 76min) – E Adebayor (sub: T Walcott, 81), Eduardo da Silva (sub: N Bendtner, 70). Substitutes not used: J Lehmann, J Hoyte. Booked: Hleb.

Newcastle United (4-4-2): S Given – S Carr, S Taylor, Caçapa, C N’Zogbia – J Milner (sub: F Ameobi, 73), N Butt, D Rozehnal (sub: J Barton, 56), D Duff – M Owen, A Smith. Substitutes not used: S Harper, D Edgar, K LuaLua. Booked: N’Zogbia, Caçapa, Owen.

Referee: M Riley.