Clash of the Titans aftermath: Di Matteo hails “Premier League” Magpies.
Posted on January 19th, 2010 | 130 Comments |
“It’s a strange league, so I expect other teams to be in the mix as well – Swansea, Leicester, Cardiff, I think Sheffield United will have something to say as well.
“You can see every week that any team can beat any team.”
Moving on to his observations about the Toon he added:
“Newcastle, you see they have the edge over everybody else with the strong squad they have and the players they have in their team.
“You look at their players and it’s Premier League all over, isn’t it?”
However in other post match comments, Di Matteo seemed to see the game as two points lost for the “Throstles”. He said:
“If I reflect over the game, I think we deserved to win, to be honest. We had some good chances, and probably more chances than Newcastle as well.
“We deserved to win this game. They went very close to losing their first game at home.”
Meanwhile, Hughton himself hailed the great qualities in adversity of Toon goal hero, Peter Lovenkrands. Despite the difficult time he is going through currently with the very recent death of his father, Lovenkrands insisted on being with the squad for what was one of the defining points of the season. He said of the brave striker:
“We need to find out what the arrangements are, but what we have said to Peter is that it’s very much up to him when he travels and what time he has there.
“For what Peter has done, certainly the fact that he wanted to come back and play, then whatever his choices are, it’s certainly fine by me.
“His father was very proud of him and I think he felt his father would have liked him to play.
“It shows great qualities from him as an individual. It was a very difficult time.”
It was a cracking game.
Any criticism of the players has to come second to criticism of the ref though. He had a poor night. PL was onside and clear throug on goal) and that great muppet of a headband wearing multiple fouling defender they had practically got away with murder.