Smogs are frozen out! Newcastle 2 Middlesbrough 0.
Posted on December 20th, 2009 | 108 Comments |
Despite it looking distinctly like the game would be called off, reminiscent of the game the Smogs called off at their place not long back, it went ahead on a freezing day with the travelling conditions treacherous. And yet St James’ wasn’t far off being a sellout as the supporters turned out in force, tackling the deep snowfall and icy conditions, for this season’s home derby as the attendance just about tipped the 50,000 mark.
Hughton once again made some fundamental changes to the Newcastle side as Danny Simpson replaced Ryan Taylor at right back, while Danny Guthrie came in on the right midfield for Fabrice Pancrate. And as he reverted to a standard 4-4-2, Harewood and Ameobi were paired together as Nicky Butt and the suspended Andy Carroll made way, with Nolan dropping into an orthodox central midfield pairing with Smith.
The game got off to a fairly unspectacular start and even the atmosphere in Level 7 hadn’t thawed out to it’s usual crescendo, in spite of the added derby edge. Everything seemed a little flat until a challenge on the left gave Guthrie a chance to swing one in, and his delivery found Ameobi at the back post. I haven’t seen the replays yet but it looked like a shove and popular opinion suggests he got away with it, as he put the ball back across goal. However, Boro still had chance to clear but were half-hearted as the ball fell invitingly to Harewood, who repeated his canny knack of being in the right place at the right time, to tap in for his fifth goal of the season to make it 1-0.
With two of the more laidback centre-forwards you’ll find in the game in Harewood and Ameobi, we spent most of the first half resorting to long balls, most of which were snuffed out easily by their defence. At the other end, Arca stood out as usual as being the one player who would create something from nothing and yet Boro too played a lot of deep, direct balls. That was never going to work on a day like today when Taylor was on his game and Coloccini absolutely oozed class. Anything Boro through at them, he dealt with brilliantly and continued to keep possession in the most unlikely of situations.
Just after the half-hour, Boro did have their one golden chance to get back into the game after O’Neil’s swirling free-kick was parried by Harper. Osbourne followed up the rebound and a combination of Harper, Steven Taylor’s arm (apparently) and the post combined to keep the ball out of the net. And really that was about all the first half had to offer.
With a larger-than-normal early exodus at half-time to get out of the cold and grab a well-deserved pint, it seemed like most supporters were also hanging on grimly to the warmth of the refreshments concourse for the start of the second half. And with the weather still at freezing point, it looked like being a long and perishing 45 minutes.
When Smith was forced off with an injury to be replaced by Nicky Butt, it seemed liked the afternoon was just going to get longer for some supporters after some poor early touches by the substitute. However, he settled into some sort of form after a short while and played his part in seeing out the win. And that win looked much more comfortable when he found Guthrie on the right, and with a quick shift out of his feet delivered a perfecly flighted ball into the box. The quality of the cross as much as anything else should have made it a banker but after Wheater and the keeper both hestitated, Ameobi had a straightforward header to make it 2-0.
With the crowd in better voice and the game slightly more interesting, Ranger came on for Harewood just after the hour and once again should willingness to get into good positions, and good touches on the ball. However, he might have done better when another great cross saw him slightly misjudge his jump (though that might be unfair not having seen the replays yet). Pancrate came on with seven minutes remaining and as Ameobi came off, he received a glowing tribute from the Level 7 faithful.
It’s another tough one to call because yes we won again but Boro were horrible really, it’s not hard to see why the more fickle of their supporters have chucked in the towel. Of course they were missing some key players but I hope that’s making a difference because otherwise they could be in big bother.
As for us, stand out performances have to be Colo, on a day when I genuinely couldn’t have said enough good things about him. Even his hair looked nice today. Enrique was immense again and with Jonas having one of his better days, between the three of them, they took the p*ss at times in keeping the ball in tight areas. Guthrie was another who excelled and I supposed I have to mention Harwewood who scored yet again, although his overall play might yet see him lose out on a loan extension beyond December, he looked like he was putting in a bit more graft if only marginally so.
Despite it’s size the crowd was fairly subdued at times but we seemed to find our voice in the second half, and there were a selection of new and old ditties to keep us on our toes. And the season of goodwill almost kicked in early as some new non-anti-Ashley lyrics were sung to the Sloop John B tune (I couldn’t work out the words…). Even the “Get out of our club” version only had three renditions throughout. Loudest shout of the day was amusingly when we sang the “da da da da da…” song back at them, and the whole ground joined in. But my favourite was “Feed the Smogs, let them know it’s Christmas time…”.
Anyway, three points in Santa’s sack and ten points clear at the top, happy days!!
Us – Harper 7, Simpson 7, S Taylor 7, Coloccini 9, Enrique 8, Guthrie 8, Nolan 6, Smith 6, Gutierrez 7, Harewood 6, Ameobi 7.
Subs – Krul, Lovenkrands, R Taylor, Kadar, Butt 7, Pancrate, Ranger 7.
Smogs – Jones, McMahon, Wheater, Pogatetz, Hoyte, O’Neil, Rhys Williams, Osbourne, Arca, Lita, Kitson.
Subs – Coyne, Taylor, Riggott, Luke Williams, Yeates, Franks, Bent
Att – 49,644 (including some mute Smogs and a kid from Worcester who bought my spare ticket for full price, hope he got home OK!)
NUFCBlog Author: bowburnmag
bowburnmag has written 234 articles on this blog.
Good Report BBM sounds like over all you had a decent if somewhat cold day, as you say Colo had a good game the day as did most but jonas, Jose and young Guthrie all had a good game.