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Crystal Palace (h) Premier League
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Date: Wednesday 20th April 2022, 7.45pm Venue: St. James' Park
Conditions: Fortified |
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Newcastle |
Crystal Palace |
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1 - 0 |
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| Half time: | 1 - 0 | |
| Score Sheet: | ||
(32)
Almiron |
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Teams |
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Dubravka |
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Guaita |
| Substitutes: | ||
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(76) Murphy for Saint-Maximin (77) Willock for Almiron (90+5) S.Longstaff for Guimaraes |
Ayew
for
Olise (40) McArthur for Kouyate (60) Mateta for Gallagher (60) |
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| Subs not used: | ||
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Darlow Manquillo Lascelles Ritchie Fernandez Gayle |
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Butland Tomkins Ward Eze Hughes Benteke |
| Bookings: | ||
Almiron |
Gallagher
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| Dismissals: | ||
| None | None | |
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Referee: Tony Harrington - the Hartlepool whistler took charge
of only his second PL game, following a 1-0
win for Wolves at Brighton last December. |
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Attendance: Officially sold out but 51,938 due to the presence of only around 800 Palace followers in one and a half sections of Leazes Level 7. That low turnout from the visiting club allowed an additional four sections to go on public sale to home supporters.
Following Sunday's Wor Flags commemoration of former favourite David Kelly, the hard-working fan volunteers revealed a contemporary display in tribute to Allan Saint-Maximin; a banner of him acknowledging the Gallowgate End flanked by a gold "10" made of metallic squares.
Once SJP had emptied, co-owners Amanda Staveley, Jamie Reuben and Mehrdad Ghodoussi took to the field for an impromptu kickabout. Chairman Yasir-Al Rumayyan also joined in; in attendance for his third Toon game - and a first victory following losses to both Spurs and Cambridge United.
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Goals |
32 mins Emil Krafth's
throw-in on United's right
reached
Bruno Guimaraes who took it on his chest and guided it upfield, precisely
targeting Miguel Almiron as he dashed forward.
The Paraguayan initially controlled the ball with his head, holding off full back Tyrick
Mitchell and taking two touches of the ball to make space as he sped into
the Palace area. Once there, he unleashed a fine left-footed effort that
flew into the top corner of the Leazes
End net.
Discarding his shirt as he had after his debut goal against Palace,
Almiron vaulted the hoardings in front of firebomb corner before
disappearing into a cluster of jubilant fans - emerging to collect
his shirt and a booking. 1-0
Half time: Newcastle 1 Palace 0
Full time: Newcastle 1 Palace 0
We Said |
Eddie Howe said:
"It was a very good first half. With the ball and in terms of our
intensity, it was up there with one of our best performances. In the
second half Crystal Palace came back into it, but we defended very
well.
"We’ve had a very good shape. The players have developed a good mentality to defending, and I think we needed to because Palace played well.
"It’s a great night for the football club. You can forget how hard it’s been to get us into this position now. We have to look back with great satisfaction.
"I say it every week but this is a great place to play football. The all-round atmosphere was brilliant to experience.
"The league table looks a lot better tonight. It looks
healthier to see us move up. When you look at where we’ve come from
and some of the teams we’ve been able to get near, it’s a great
feeling because we were a long way away.
"It seems like a long time ago (when he took the job). You
can very quickly forget where we were and where we’ve come from this
season. It’s been great to see the team move forward and develop
certain characteristics."
On the six successive home wins:
"(I'm) very proud because we didn’t necessarily see that
coming. At the start of the run, we were desperate for any win,
never mind six.
“We’ve managed to get those important wins and build a really good
feeling here and a good relationship between the players and
supporters."
On being the first Manager since Sir Bobby Robson to achieve
that:
"It is incredible because you’re talking about an absolute legend of
the football club and quite rightly so.
"He was someone I have always admired, I never met him, but he’s
always someone I admired from afar for everything he achieved in the
game so he’s the benchmark for everything we try to do here and it
is great to have done that today.”
On Miggy:
"Incredible goal from Miggy - really pleased for him
personally. A player that gives everything, supporters rightly hold
him in high regard, and a brilliant professional.
"He showed a lot of pace to get in behind their back line, and what
a finish. His finishing is something he's worked incredibly hard on
behind the scenes."
On the Wor Flags pre-game ASM display:
"The support for Maxi tonight was incredible and showed a real
intelligence and emotional attachment to the players and club.
"They’ve created that atmosphere to play in, and I can’t thank them
enough for helping us out the difficult situation we were in.”
They Said |
Patrick Vieira said:
"It’s frustrating: I was really
pleased with the second-half, the way we competed in the second-half. We
didn’t enter the game well, and I wasn’t pleased at all with the way we
fought especially in the first 20 minutes or half-an-hour.
“We gave them the momentum and the belief. We tried to
play a bit more quickly in the second-half. We had possession but we didn’t
manage to create many chances.
"At half-time the message was to really understand what we wanted, before
talking about what we could improve tactically, it was important to compete.
"After that we can start to put our passing game in place, but that will not be enough if we are not competing in the first ball, the second ball or running in behind. I got the answer I wanted, but we didn’t score that goal and I was disappointed with the performance overall.
“JP (Mateta) and Macca (James McArthur) brought a little bit more energy to the team. We managed to play more going forwards, JP stretched the back four going in behind.
“We created some situations, but the final ball wasn’t the best at times and we struggled to create chances.
“How to manage the disappointment of the semi-final into the next game at Newcastle. The result wasn’t what we wanted, but I believe as a team we will learn from those situations and that is good for the future.”
"Losing the semi-final of the FA Cup (last Sunday)
was a lot for us to take, we've
seen it with the way we entered the game, but we have to bounce back and
go back to basics and win football matches."
Stats |
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It's also worth recording that when that run started they were sixth and rose up to fourth - a rather better starting point than eighteenth spot we occupied before the current run started against Everton. NUFC longest PL home winning runs: 1995/96 13 games 2002/03 11 games 1994/95 7 games 2003/04 & 2021/22 6 games Newcastle remain unbeaten at SJP in the PL since Christmas 2021, a run of eight games following a 0-4 loss to Manchester City on December 19th. That's United's lengthiest streak without a PL home reverse since they managed nine games in a row between January and April 2012. It's 15 games since they reached half time trailing in any PL game - that same Manchester City defeat, when they were 0-2 down after 45 minutes. NUFC PL home and away win total in 2021: eight from 42 games NUFC PL home and away win total in 2022: nine from 14 games 2021/22 home record: L,D,D,L,L,D,D,W,L,D,D,W,W,W,W,W,W With two games still to play here, Newcastle's record of seven home PL wins already exceeds the six they managed in the whole of 2019/20 and 2020/21. Miguel Almiron's ninth Premier League goal came over a year after his eighth and have come during 105 appearances (87 starts). Making no distinction between starts and substitute outings, the figure in brackets following each game denotes the appearance number - and confirms that tonight's goal ended Miggy's longest barren spell since he became a Magpie: Dec 2019 Crystal Palace (h) won 1-0 (27th game) Jan 2020 Wolves (a) drew 1-1 (31st game) Jul 2020 Bournemouth (a) won 4-1 (41st game) Jul 2020 West Ham (h) drew 2-2 (42nd game) Dec 2020 West Bromwich Albion (h) won 2-1 (56th game) Jan 2021 Leeds United (h) lost 1-2 (64th game) Feb 2021 Southampton (h) won 3-2 (67th game) Feb 2021 Southampton (h) won 3-2 (67th game) Apr 2022 Crystal Palace (h) won 1-0 (105th game) Six of those came while PL games were behind closed doors, meaning that Miggy was unable to celebrate scoring them with fans. The three exceptions were the two against Crystal Palace that book-ended the one at Wolves, which may explain his histrionics tonight. Or maybe he just hates Palace. 40 points - which PL game did United reach it? 1993/94 game 24, finished 3rd with 77 points 1994/95 game 22, finished 6th with 72 points 1995/96 game 18, finished 2nd with 78 points 1996/97 game 24, finished 2nd with 68 points 1997/98 game 34, finished 13th with 44 points 1998/99 game 31, finished 13th with 46 points 1999/00 game 29, finished 11th with 52 points 2000/01 game 32, finished 11th with 51 points 2001/02 game 22, finished 4th with 71 points 2002/03 game 23, finished 3rd with 69 points 2003/04 game 26, finished 5th with 56 points 2004/05 game 35, finished 14th with 44 points 2005/06 game 32, finished 7th with 58 points 2006/07 game 32, finished 13th with 43 points 2007/08 game 35, finished 12th with 43 points 2008/09 n/a finished 18th with 34 points (R) 2010/11 game 33 finished 12th with 46 points 2011/12 game 24 finished 5th with 65 points 2012/13 game 37 finished 16th with 41 points 2013/14 game 27 finished 10th with 49 points 2014/15 n/a finished 15th with 39 points 2015/16 n/a finished 18th with 37 points (R) 2017/18 game 33, finished 10th with 44 points 2018/19 game 35, finished 13th with 45 points 2019/20 game 32, finished 13th with 44 points 2020/21 game 37, finished 12th with 45 points 2021/22 game 33, finished ?? with ?? points (all 38 game seasons, except 1993/94 and 1994/95 42 games) The last meeting of these two sides ended 1-1 at Selhurst Park in October 2021, as Graeme Jones took interim charge following Steve Bruce's exit. Just two of his starting XI lined up against the Eagles again tonight; Emil Krafth and Allan Saint-Maximin. Dropping out for a variety of reasons were messrs Darlow, Manquillo, Lascelles, Clark, Ritchie, Hayden, S.Longstaff, Fraser and Wilson.
Eagles @ Magpies - PL era:
2021/22 Won 1-0 Almiron |
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Waffle |
Renaissance Men
A spectacular strike from Miguel Almiron and some steadfast
defending gave Newcastle a sixth successive league victory at St.
James' Park on Wednesday night - raising them into a frankly
unbelievable eleventh place.
No Magpies boss had managed that many top-flight home wins in a row
since Bobby Robson in 2004 - but eighteen years later, "the fella
from Bournemouth who got a team relegated" (copyright, S.Bruce)
can add that to his lengthening list of achievements so far on
Tyneside.
51,000 United fans present made their feelings known in no
uncertain terms with repeated renditions of "Eddie Howe's black
and white army", while his hard-working side were equally well
backed.
Naming the same starting line-up that defeated Leicester City on
Sunday, the hosts had threatened through Almiron and Chris Wood
before the Paraguayan ended his club goal drought in spectacular
style on 32 minutes.
Seconds before his superb finish, Miggy had clashed with Wilfried Zaha
in his own half as a throw-in was awarded to the hosts. As that came
back into play from Emil Krafth, Bruno Guimaraes launched it forward
and Almiron did the rest; exhibiting the strength, poise and
accuracy that he so often lacks.
A positive display culminating in that deserved opener looked to be
proceeding in similar fashion three minutes after the restart, as
Joelinton headed Matt Targett's free kick into the ground with the
goal gaping.
However that was to be the last sighting of Newcastle as a serious
attacking force and they visibly became more compact from that point
- allowing Palace to take an increasing share of possession.
Giving a typical flawed display, Zaha came closest for the Eagles,
one
shot from the edge of the box narrowly wide and another effort
lifted over the bar in the final seconds.
He also mystifyingly claimed possession of the ball twice in the
closing stages of the game before home throw-ins - apparently
unaware of the fact he was helping Newcastle to run the clock down.
For the fifth consecutive home game, Howe's side succeeding in
protecting a one goal lead. It wasn't pretty at times, but the end
justified the means, aided by a prosaic Palace performance.
Victory saw the 40 point mark achieved from United's 33rd PL game; a
total that was utterly unthinkable at the end of 2021, when they sat
on 11 with half of the season over.
It's debatable what is left in the tank from the core of this team
as they prepare for a third game in just seven days at Norwich on
Saturday. While changes seem inevitable though, that's no reflection
on playing poorly, just the need for some fresh(er) legs.
The style and swagger occasionally glimpsed here belongs to a
hoped-for future age, but the unadorned effort, guts and commitment
evident since that FA Cup loss to Cambridge United has revitalised
both club and fans to an astonishing degree, not to mention
banishing the spectre of relegation.
Money alone cannot buy that.
Biffa