Carroll’s cracker! Newcastle 3-1 Liverpool.
Posted on December 11th, 2010 | 142 Comments |
I have to doff my cap to all the players as they showed remarkable professionalism at a time which couldn’t have been easy for them. They dug in, displayed the togetherness that Chris Hughton has instilled in them, and got the result that they deserved.
In truth, 3-1 probably flattered the home side a little, but I still feel we were good enough for the win. A number of exceptional individual performances combined to help Newcastle to a first win in six games. Cheick Tiote was outstanding, as was Andy Carroll, who never let the Liverpool defence settle, but the best player on the park for me was Joey Barton.
Barton returned to first-team action today having sat out the last four matches through suspension then injury, and he gave us all a show of what we had been missing as he pulled all the strings from the right side of midfield and even grabbed himself an assist and a goal against his hometown club.
In truth, I feared the worst before kick-off. I felt that perhaps the unrest that had been caused by the sacking of Chris Hughton would be a bridge to far. That unrest will probably resurface at some point, but there was none of it on show from the players today as they went about the business of trying to get the three points on offer.
Liverpool had the first real chance of the game when Sotiris Kyriakos forced a fine reaction save from Tim Krul after Newcastle failed to clear a corner on 10 minutes. Carroll could have put the home side one-up just a few minutes later after being fed in by Jonas Gutierrez. Unfortunately the strikers control let him down at the vital moment, but he was to be influential just a few minutes later.
Joey Barton flighted a free-kick into the box from around 35 yards which found the head of Andy Carroll who nodded the ball into the path of Kevin Nolan who swept the ball home past Jose Reina in the Liverpool goal. It was a textbook set-piece move that paid dividends.
Liverpool probably had the best chance of the rest of the first-half, but fortunately Jose Enrique was on hand to clear a deflected Raul Meireles shot off the line which meant that the home side went in at half-time 1-0 up.
The away side equalised shortly after the break, but it was goal that had more than a hint of fortune about it. Sol Campbell allowed the ball to bounce and mistimed his challenge allowing Dirk Kuyt to get in a shot at goal. Unfortunately the shot took a deflection off of Steven Taylor, and with Tim Krul wrong-footed there wasn’t a lot that could have been done to stop the ball trickling into the back of the net.
The equaliser seemed to spur the away side on and they could have took the lead shortly after had it not been for a smart save from Krul to deny Fernando Torres after the entire Newcastle defence switched off. Liverpool continued to assert themselves and it looked like they would go on and grab the next goal.
That was until the introduction of Nile Ranger on 63 minutes. The pace and energy of the 19-year-old combined with his willingness to chase and hassle defenders arguably turned the game in the favour of the home side. In fact it was very nearly a dream introduction after Ranger lost his marker and found himself through on goal only to fire wide of the right post.
The home side continued to press and got their reward ten minutes from time. Tim Krul pumped a long ball up front which Andy Carroll flicked on. The Liverpool defence allowed the ball to bounce twice giving Joey Barton the opportunity to sneak in and prod the ball past the onrushing Pepe Reina.
The icing on the cake came in injury time though when Andy Carroll was invited to shoot from 25 yards in the absence of any form of pressure from the Liverpool defence. He didn’t waste the opportunity and smashed the ball into the back of The Gallowgate net.
I’m heartened by what I saw today. As I said earlier, I though that perhaps the pressure could have got to the players, but I’m happy to be proved wrong on that front. Newcastle currently sit in 8th place in the Premir League table, and they will only be displaced if Blackburn beat Bolton tomorrow lunchtime.
A positive end to a tough week then, and hopefully we can kick on from here.
Howay the lads!
Newcastle: Tim Krul, Danny Simpson, Steven Taylor, Sol Campbell, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan, Cheick Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Shola Ameobi, Andy Carroll.
Subs: Steve Harper, James Perch, Alan Smith, Wayne Routledge, Danny Guthrie, Peter Lovenkrands, Nile Ranger.
Liverpool: Pepe Reina, Glen Johnson, Martin Skrtel, Sotiris Kyrgiakos, Paul Konchesky, Dirk Kuyt, Lucas Leiva, Raul Meireles, Maxi Rodriguez, Fernando Torres, David Ngog.
Subs: Brad Jones, Martin Kelly, Fabio Aurelio, Christian Poulsen, Joe Cole, Ryan Babel, Milan Jovanovic.
Attendance: 50,137.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
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