The sun shone and Newcastle made hay at SJP on Saturday!
The Magpies got off to a decent start. As early as the 4th minute when Joey Barton was hacked down around midfield, he picked himself up and from the resultant free kick, curled in an excellent ball to be met by a diving Mike Williamson, with the Wolves ‘keeper just managing to turn it around the post.
It was all Newcastle for the first few minutes, but they were unable to prize a clear opening.
It seemed that we’d got the same ref as last time, with Mike Dean being sucked into Wolves typical tactics like a wet noodle. Whenever a Toon player got close they went to ground, whenever Newcastle had the ball they were chopped down. The refs falling for their ‘gamemanship’ gave me an ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach. (more…)
With Newcastle needing a victory fast to avoid getting sucked in to the fight at the bottom end of the Premiership table, it was with much anticipationm and some trepidation that I began viewing this game.
After the kickoff, Newcastle seemed to get off to a fairly brisk start with Peter Lovenkrands leading an attack on the Wolves goal as he chased down a long kick from Steve Harper, cutting through the Wolves defemce. The ball is safely gathered by by Wolves goalkeeper, Wayne Hennessy however, and the ball is soon up at the other end of the pitch where Wolves striker, Sylvan Ebanks Blake, worries Harper in the Newcastle goal. Once again though, the ball was gathered and the panic was over but it was “end to end stuff” as they say. There were in general quite a few long punts producing action at both ends of the pitch, at least in the early stages of the game.
Somewhat predictably, Wolves midfielder, Karl Henry, was given a less than hospitable welcome by the St James’s faithful as he took his first touch of the ball, a reminder of rather “robust” treatment of Joey Barton in the last encounter between the two sides at Molineux earlier in the season. This time, there seem to be some rather clumsy challenges going in all round though, with Henry himself on the receiving end of a rather clumsy one from Shola Ameobi in the ninth minute of the game. Just after that though, Ameobi almost went on to score as he charges on to Christophe Berra’s clearance and a lucky deflection almost loops over Hennessy. Luckily for him and Wolves though, he manages to get his hand on it, preventing a certain goal. (more…)