Leicester City (h) Premiership
| Date: Saturday 19th December 1998, Venue: St. James' Park Conditions: tbc |
|
|
Newcastle |
Leicester City |
|
|
1 - 0 |
|
| Half time: | 0 - 0 | |
| Score Sheet: | ||
(66) Glass
|
||
Teams |
||
|
Given Barton Charvet Dabizas Howey Speed Georgiadis Glass Ketsbaia Lee Andersson |
Keller Ullathorne Elliott Sinclair Taggart Guppy Impey Izzet Lennon Cottee Heskey |
|
| Substitutes: | ||
|
(55) Shearer for Ketsbaia |
Savage
for Izzet (48) Kaamark for Sinclair (61) Fenton for Cottee (66) |
|
| Subs not used: | ||
|
Solano Hamann Hughes Harper |
Arphexad Zagorakis |
|
| Bookings: | ||
| None |
Elliott
 |
|
| Dismissals: | ||
| None | None | |
|
Referee: Jeff
Winter |
||
|
Attendance:
36,718 |
||
Goals |
Half time: Magpies 0 Foxes 0
66 mins: Stephen
Glass shot 1-0
Full time: Magpies 1 Foxes 0
We Said |
Ruud Gullit said:
To
follow
They Said |
Martin
O'Neill:
To follow
Stats |
|
|
Waffle |
Independent match
report The Leicester manager was no doubt happy to
find the sheepish Ibrahim Ba absent and still unsigned by Newcastle yesterday
but his relief was probably tempered by reports that the financially challenged
Foxes may bite at a pounds £5m offer from Manchester United or Blackburn
Rovers for Neil Lennon. It was never going to be just another day
for Lennon, who could have been forgiven for losing his head, in the
metaphorical sense at least, when the teams last met, at Filbert Street in
April. Lennon might have decided to let it be, as it were, speaking in defence
of Alan Shearer at the subsequent FA hearing, but the Toon Army has not
forgiven the Northern Ireland midfielder for heinously getting his head in the
way of the England captain's swinging right boot.
Newcastle United Plc may be an
attractive proposition to NTL Incorporated, the American media group
planning to assume control at St James' Park, but the half-term report of
Newcastle United Football Club does not make pretty reading.
Despite winning yesterday, for only the second time in nine Premiership
fixtures, the falling football stock of the Magpies is evident in black and
white: 24 points from the first 18 matches of the season. That represents a
drop of two points from last year, when the playing department of the
Newcastle United empire had to come up with a winning result from the last
shift at the home office to avert the threat of demotion.
Newcastle's form has been not so much black and white as simply grey and
yesterday they continued to look like a collection of individuals rather
than a collective outfit - and a not particularly impressive collection at
that.
Thanks to a Stephen Glass goal 21 minutes into the second-half, they managed
to give their supporters, corporate and otherwise, a rare victory to cheer.
But they needed the help of a languid Leicester performance. As Martin
O'Neill lamented: "We were poor today, really poor."
Lennon's right boot would have inflicted early damage yesterday had his 20-yard
shot not been deflected wide. Even with Shearer starting on the bench and
Duncan Ferguson flu-ridden, though, Leicester failed to punish a
vulnerable-looking Newcastle line-up.
A front-two of Andreas Andersson and Temuri Ketsbaia was not exactly the
striking partnership Ruud Gullit hoped to field, but the strikingly indifferent
Andersson twice went close before Leicester's one big chance came and went on
the half-hour. Emile Heskey was left in the clear by Frank Sinclair's
rapier-sharp through- ball but, to the relief of the locals, his attempted
finish was blunderingly blunt. Leicester's chief marksman dragged his shot
wide.
For a while it seemed the highlight of the afternoon might be Shearer's
55th-minute emergence from the dug-out for his first appearance in five weeks.
But then Glass found the ball at his feet on the left edge of the Leicester
penalty area, and his right-footed shot plucked three points from a turkey of a
contest.
Biffa