Massive win, potential banana skin avoided and we extended our lead over City by two points. That’s the good news. The bad news is we may have lost two key players for the foreseeable future, but we have to cross our fingers and hope for the best on that.
This was a great win and while maybe the scoreline flattered us a little, it was a comfortable, deserved win in a fixture that has given us problems in recent years. I think we were assisted by how shit they were at the back but I also think we spotted things in their game that we could exploit, and we did. It wasn’t a co-incidence how we created so many chances by knocking the ball forward early and turning them around, or the way we countered them on their set-pieces.
That was a big weakness of theirs and we exploited it. It was quite strange to see really. In open play they had a compact shape, five across the back, three sat in front and Maupay dropping off to get turned and start counter attacks. It was tough to break down, as we thought they would be. But then they’d get a set-piece and turn into Keegan’s Newcastle, throwing everyone forward and having all of their players in our final third.
They started well and although I didn’t think we were playing badly, they were the better side in the early stages. They were quite slick on the counter attack and had a few chances. One counter attack they had ended with a Toney shot that Kelleher saved comfortably, but it was lovely football. Konate did well to put Toney off in the end but that was proper incisive stuff from them.
Toney had another chance that he dragged wide after being found by Maupay, and those two were really lively early on. I felt as though we were looking decent enough though and had some good situations ourselves. Unfortunately we lost one of our better players when Curtis went down after an innocuous looking challenge. It’s a good tackle by their lad and it’s not reckless or overly physical, Curtis just landed awkwardly. He was in agony and it’s a big worry.
Recommended Comments