The Time is Quarter to Release Clause
Newcastle really need to beat us to have a chance of staying
up and here’s the thing – I’ve never felt more confident about a home win since
the League 1 days. Despite spending
loads in the summer and loads more in January, they’re still shite and have no
defenders who are any good. The fans
seem to uniformly blame Mike Ashley and I get that to a degree. His appointments at board and managerial
level have been shocking… I mean, John Carver and Steve McClaren – that’s two
of the worst managers in Premier League history. I don’t know who’s responsible for scouting
and buying players but whoever it is, is shit at their job and Ashley appointed
him. Wasn’t it Joe Kinnear at one
point? Jesus. On the positive side for Fat Mike, he has
sanctioned spending loads of money and he’s no Randy Lerner who is completely
absent and hardly spends a penny.
Another problem the Geordies have with Ashley is that they see the
identity of the club being eroded… I mean, the Sports Direct Arena… for fucks
sake.
This season was always going to be difficult from the moment
Ashley appointed Steve McClaren – who is and will always be useless. The error was then compounded by leaving him
in position for far too long when he really should have been gone by
November. In the managerial seat for the
next few games is Rafa Benitez. I say
’next few games’ because he has a break clause in his contract should they get
relegated. I am pretty confident that he’ll
be checking the small print on that clause to make sure his exit is cut and
dried, once he gets home from today’s game.
The news from midweek was that Steve Davis would be missing
and that Shane Long would be back and that was the change made to the starting
XI, along with Cuco Martina returning in place of Cédric. It’s a mark of Martina’s improvement that
this doesn’t have me effing and blinding in annoyance any more. Newcastle have on the face of it, quite a
strong starting line up but in the mix they have two dodgy players in Steven
Taylor who has always been incredibly average and Vurnon Anita who is a joke
player, pure and simple useless not-fit-for-purpose mercenary circus midget.
Newcastle are known for their tentative starts to games and
we have another one here as we win a corner in the first minute. Bertrand’s delivery is met by Virgil and
Garziano tries to head it on towards goal but it’s straight at Darlow. Within three minutes we’re bouncing up and
down as Mané plays a ball down the middle to Long who beats Shelvey with ease
and it bounces via Pellè back to Long and he runs a Taylor who shows him
towards the goal and unsurprisingly, that’s the way Long goes and slots it
under Darlow as easy as you like for 1-0.
It’s so easy that you look at the linesman to see if he’s got a flag up
as the Newcastle players all seem to have stopped but no, that’s how they play.
Newcastle try to calm things down and play the ball about
from the kick off but after going across the pitch a few times, Saints close
them down and Taylor gives Darlow a shite backpass which gets three quarters
there and Long is alert and gets there first.
Darlow has to come flying out and steams into Long and is lucky that he
gets at least part of the ball. Shane is
in a crumpled heap on the ground but after a bit of treatment he’s ok.
With Anita being at left back, it’s surprising that most of
our play is down the other side with Tadic and Bertrand terrorising Janmaat who
is not being helped much by Townsend and Sissoko. The full back can’t be arsed to put a tackle
in so just blocks the ball with his hand and gives us a free kick. It wouldn’t have been a free kick against
Leicester. Clasie swings it over and it
curls about a foot wide of the far post.
It’s so easy for us.
If they have the ball then usually they either give it away with a poor
pass or Mitrovic gets out-muscled by José or Virgil. When we have it they kind of just lumber
about with none of their front 6 being particularly interested in covering the
defenders. From a Newcastle foray into
our half, they give the ball away and Mané has it in midfield. His pass out to Tadic on the left is poor and
the crowd groans as it’s straight to Janmaat but the groans turn to a cheer
mixed with laughing as he falls on his arse and misses it. Tadic is away and he feeds it behind Graziano
who falls over and into Long who takes a heavy touch which luckily bounces back
to Graziano who is up again and he creams it past Darlow and into the net for
2-0. Great finish.
Janmaat is pretending that he’s injured to cover the fact
that he’s fallen on his arse and make himself look stupid and so he’s off and
replaced with Siem de Jong which means that Sissoko moves from not giving a
shit in midfield to not giving a shit at right back. Half time, 2-0, easy, really easy.
As Newcastle emerge for the second half, sadly, Benitez has
had enough of the Steve Taylor comedy show and replaced him with Lascelles and
it looks like Anita has gone to be a joke circus midget at right back and
Sissoko to not giving a shit at left back.
It’s Sissoko who has the first chance of sorts in the second
half as Fraser shanks a clearance and the Newcastle player has a brief chance
for a shot from miles out but he completely shanks it as well and it all ends
in a goal kick. We’re still the better side and win a corner on the right. Bertrand’s kick is flicked by Pellè’s quiff
and hits a defender and out and so we go again.
This time Ryan plays it short to Mané who is allowed to run at Wijnaldum
who puts in a real half-arsed effort, allowing Mané to the line. His pull back is hit by Fonte, Darlow saves
with his feet but the ball is back to Big Vic who takes a touch before ramming
it into the net for 3-0 and game over, if it wasn’t already. The big man certainly enjoyed that.
JWP is on for Long which is a bit disappointing as I’d like
to have seen a like for like swap with J-Rod and Newcastle decide that they’re
actually going to play and create some openings. Mitrovic tees up Perez for a shit which is
straight at Forster and we hear the Newcastle fans for the first time with an
ironic “we’ve had a shot” chant. Then
they have another shot to cheer about as Townsend has a decent pop at goal
which Fraser has to extend himself to keep out.
Andros Townsend is nothing if not predictable. Everyone knows that he’s a left footed
player, playing on the right and he wants to cut in and get it on his left foot
and hit it. He’s scored some very good
goals like that and all match, Saints have been aware of it with all out
players covering this move when they came up against him. Maybe it’s because JWP has just come on but
when Townsend turned inside Clasie, JWP should have been there with the tackle
but he’s not and sells himself, sending Townsend onto his left foot and bang,
top corner, no chance Fraser and a really good goal.
With 15 minutes to go it’s time for Clasie to leave us and
be replaced by Romeu. We’re still
playing well and there’s no hint of a wobble and Pellè produces a superb headed
pass to put Mané away in the inside right channel and he squares up the
defender before curling a shot just wide with his left foot. On 83 minutes there’s the biggest cheer of
the day with Jay Rodriguez coming on to replace Tadic. He looks sharp for the remaining 10 minutes and
there’s great anticipation as Mané stands up a cross to the back post. Anita, the useless circus midget, is
defending it and for a second it looks like there may be an opportunity for Jay
to head everything into the net but to be fair, Anita does well and clears
it. Well played useless circus midget.
Well that was a piece of piss. We played as well as we had to, to win the
game comfortably – no more, no less. It
was as comfortable as it could possibly be once Shane put us ahead in the 4th
minute. Shane really showed us what we
were missing against Leicester and ran himself into the ground for the hour or
so that he was on. Star of the show for
me was Graziano who bullied and battered the Newcastle centre backs around all
afternoon. Nothing summed it up better
than in the last minute when Fraser launched a clearance and Graziano held off
both centre backs, one with each arm and still managed to perfectly control the
ball with one touch. Brilliant
performance from him and a deserved goal again.
I saw a stat after the game which said that he’s scored or assisted 7 of
our last 8 goals or something like that.
There are many who don’t rate him and just want to see Charlie Austin
play but guess what, Austin got injured in the warm up so he can’t really be
relied upon. Also, even if he was fit, I
know who I’d rather have in the side.
Elsewhere it was workmanlike – Clasie and Wanyama ruled the
midfield even though outnumbered and it was good to see someone different get a
goal when big Vic slammed in the 3rd. The defence were there when we needed them to
be with José and Virgil combining to not let Mitrovic have a sniff though I’m
sure the Newcastle striker would have liked to have actually had some service.
Highlight of the game was J-Rod coming on to a great
reception and it was just a shame that when he closed in on that cross to the
far post, that he didn’t smash Anita and the ball into the net and let the
referee sort it out afterwards. Ronald
said afterwards that he was going to be managed back into it but he sounded
genuinely excited about the prospect. He
had a little moan that we should have scored more goals but I don’t expect he’s
that bothered really.
Newcastle – bloody hell... my Geordie grandfather will be
turning in his grave... well he would be if he hadn’t have been cremated. I remember games when the travelling
Newcastle fans were loud for 90 minutes but today there was nothing, as if the
spirit of the fans has been eroded by the team and now there’s nothing left. Can you blame them if they travel all over
the country watching that every week.
Utter shite. Even our friend The
True Geordie is so pissed off with it all, he’s declined to make a video report
of a Toon game for the first time this season.
Rafa set them up to attack with Wijnaldum, their top scorer
deployed as holding midfielder along with Shelvey. With that ‘screen’ in front of the defenders,
it meant that when they didn’t have the ball it was so easy to get to their
back 4 which was embarrassingly bad. You
can’t set up, basically without a defensive midfield when you have a defence
like that. I’ve seen better non-league
players than Steven Taylor, Anita is just an apology for a footballer and
Janmaat’s performance, especially when falling over for the second goal was
hilarious. No way was he injured – he
just wanted to get off and go home. Mbemba
and Lascelles at least tried and then there was Moussa Sissoko, a player who is
in the France squad at the moment where Morgan Schneiderlin isn’t. He started off as a 10, behind Mitrovic and
then went to right back when Janmaat went off but just kept wandering off and
not bothering to come back. Their best
player by a mile was Andros Townsend who scored a great goal but if we hadn’t
lost concentration because it was so bloody easy, then he wouldn’t have got
that shot away. They’re going down. End of.
No chance, No fight, No hope. Down with the Villa. Rafa Benitez – started the season with a
forward line of Benzema, Bale and Ronaldo and ended it in the Championship with
Mitrovic, Perez and Sissoko. Started the
season with Sergio Ramos at centre back and ended it with Steven Taylor... not
exactly career progression.
We have 5 games to go and Europe is still a
possibility. I reckon 4 wins out of the
remaining 5 games will do it but all will become clearer after the next round
of midweek matches which will even the number of games played out. With Chelsea looking like they’ve packed it
in for the season and actually playing some youngsters, we should finish above
them and we should also finish above Stoke who appear to be limping towards the
season’s end. Liverpool are just 2
points behind us (2 games in hand), West Ham 2 in front and Man United 3 in
front (both with 1 in hand). At the
moment, most would predict us finishing 8th which will mean a nice
long break as the lowest qualifying position is likely to be 6th. Stranger things have happened – I’m sure
Newcastle might try in one game before the end of the season.
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