Well Saturdays here, every premier league squad is set after the transfer window shut on Thursday, time will now tell which teams have sufficiently strengthened and as I've said previously i feel we have strengthened the squad enough to drag ourselves away from the dreaded relegation dogfight that will occur from March-May!
On to todays game and we welcomed Chelsea to St James', before the game i felt optimistic we'd just got a very important result on Tuesday against Aston Villa and Chelsea have hit a stumbling block of late losing to Swansea in the league cup, and struggling to a 2-2 draw away to Brentford last weekend followed by a quickfire Adam Le Fondre double on Wednesday (We know how that feels though!). For Rafa Benitez he probably prefers playing away from home more than at home at the minute as there are less fans on his back away from home!
Kicking off and attacking the Gallowgate with an unchanged side Newcastle started the game brightly dominating possession moving the ball around well and keeping Chelsea attacks to a minimum, the one thing that struck me about this game through the last couple of days is that Chelsea would either run riot against us or struggle to gain a real foothold in the game. The first 15 minutes had very little goalmouth action, bits and pieces attacks and the majority of the play being in the middle of the park. But then the chances for us started to come Cisse had a chance only for Petr Cech to be equal to it, a few minutes later Debuchy crossed it into the box that was cleared away for Santon to attempt an effort at goal from 20 yards just wide, I'm sure that when Santon finally does score it will be a screamer!! Sissoko had an opportunity from inside the area that he drove over the bar and this was all in the first half hour! I began to think that we would be punished for not making any of these chances count, even though there is renewed optimism around I do feel when the game is actually being played that something could go wrong at any time as football is that type of game!
Ramires then got his name put in the book for what was a fairly dangerous tackle on Gutierrez, some referees have sent players off for less than the challenge but I can understand the decision as it wasn't a bad natured first 30-35 minutes and sometimes one reckless challenge doesn't warrant a red card, so looking at it again fair play to the ref! Demba Ba had an opprtunity to score getting the best of Coloccini and should have done better with his chance, the sort of chance we'd been reliant upon when he wore the black and white stripes. Coloccini then sent Ba packing with an accidental boot in the face that has broken the Chelsea Strikers nose forcing him to come off and being replaced by Fernando Torres (a pleasing sight for us all with a striker in such bad form recently). After a half of almost complete goalmouth domination the deadlock was broken from one of the most unlikely sources and also in unusual circumstances for the goalscorer. Davide Santon with the ball, crossed into the box and Jonas Gutierrez, yes Jonas Gutierrez leaping and glancing a header into the net past a stubborn Petr Cech who had done his best to deny almost everyone today! Usually a goal against one of the teams near the top of the league is greeted with a marked response from them, and i was thinking "Just get to half time, please" but if anything we were still in the ascendency and managed to carve a couple more opportunities before the break, Sissoko having an effort that struck Bertrand and deflected wide being the more notable.
Half time 1-0 to us, i dared to dream that we may actually get back to back victories, but the realist inside me remembered what had happened at Villa the second half their was like a siege, attack after attack. We know how unpredictable football can be at times and i was nervous about the second half, i literally had no fingernails left and the second half hadn't even kicked off yet!
The game resumed and there were a slow 5 minutes immediately after the break, and for every bit as well as Newcastle had played for the first half Chelsea were always likely to score, cue Frank Lampard with a rocket from 25 yards beating Tim Krul comprehensively. On a side note I think the way that Chelsea are treating a club legend like Lampard is appalling, he has been an unbelievable servant for their club and has been their most consistent player for the last 10 years! As shown with this goal he became the first player ever to score 10 goals in 10 consecutive seasons (so I am led to believe) The team looked shell-shocked and Chelsea started to look much more confident and began to control the game, Lampard had a header saved from 12 yards out by Krul shortly after scoring and then on the hour disaster struck, Juan Mata scored a quite sublime goal into the top corner of Kruls net. From the dominating to the dominated the game had completely swung in Chelseas favour in the space of just 15 minutes. That statistic I had heard so much in the last 18 months started to get at me, Newcastle had never come behind to win a game under Pardew! Would there be a response? Would we lie down and let Chelsea score 3, 4 or maybe 5. Thankfully it was the first of these and the response came just over 5 minutes later Gouffran with a shot Cech with another save but this time straight to the feet of our man-mountain Moussa Sissoko to finish with an open goal from 10 yards! 2-2 just over 20 minutes to go and the game was set for a cracking climax. Both teams at this point would not have been blamed to calm the game down, shut up shop and take a point. Thankfully nobody did that and the game remained an open flowing affair both teams wanting the points. End to end football, Sissoko had a further chance running down the left outpacing Cole and having his shot tipped wide by Cech, The Chelsea defence was set slightly more advanced than ours and it seemed that Colo and Taylor were forever on the edge of the area at this point, but we always looked dangerous on the quick counter attack, Proven again by Sissoko who picked the ball up on the left faced with Gary Cahill between him and the goal, shimmied one way and then the other before trying a toe poke passed Cech who again was equal to it. A very positive substitution was made by Pardew, Gouffran who had worked his socks off all game was replaced by the tricky Sylvain Marveaux and the impact was almost immediate, Marveaux using his trickery to get into the box towards the byline before cutting it back to Cisse who took a fairly wild swing at it, the shot was high, wide and not at all handsome, but 87 minutes in and having worked hard i think it could have been forgiven to swipe at it. With each chance missed our chances of winning became less and less likely, and in the penultimate minute of the 90 Davide Santon had the ball on the left cut inside and laid it to a certain Moussa Sissoko who hit a piledriver to Cech's right and send the entire stadium wild!! Sissoko was then brought off and replaced by Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa to rapturous applause from the Newcastle faithful. Shut up shop time 4 minutes of stoppage time all hands to the pump defensive duties. Lampard had one final great opportunity but Steven Taylor who had been immense in keeping Chelseas clear cut chances at a minimum was in the right place at the right time! That was it and the final whistle signalled the first time Newcastle had come from behind in a Premier League game to win under Pards but more importantly another 3 points to take us 6 points clear of Wigan and Villa in the drop zone!
What a rollercoaster of a game, from delight to despair and to delight again. What an incredible game of football for us and for the Neutral! Moussa Sissoko was nothing short of spectacular today with another complete performance, I know that it is early in his Newcastle career but he has all the qualities that Yaya Toure has and I think he is going to get better and better as he settles into the team. Clearly the Man of the Match from anyone who watched that game. Every single one of the players today when asked lived up to the challenge laid down when trailing 2-1. Did we deserve to win the game today? In my opinion absolutely apart from the first even 10 minutes and the first 15 minutes after half time Chelsea weren't really at the races and we had dominated proceedings and fully deserved the 3 points!
Is anyone else excited for Next Saturday? I certainly am!
Enjoy the celebrations! I know i will
On to todays game and we welcomed Chelsea to St James', before the game i felt optimistic we'd just got a very important result on Tuesday against Aston Villa and Chelsea have hit a stumbling block of late losing to Swansea in the league cup, and struggling to a 2-2 draw away to Brentford last weekend followed by a quickfire Adam Le Fondre double on Wednesday (We know how that feels though!). For Rafa Benitez he probably prefers playing away from home more than at home at the minute as there are less fans on his back away from home!
Kicking off and attacking the Gallowgate with an unchanged side Newcastle started the game brightly dominating possession moving the ball around well and keeping Chelsea attacks to a minimum, the one thing that struck me about this game through the last couple of days is that Chelsea would either run riot against us or struggle to gain a real foothold in the game. The first 15 minutes had very little goalmouth action, bits and pieces attacks and the majority of the play being in the middle of the park. But then the chances for us started to come Cisse had a chance only for Petr Cech to be equal to it, a few minutes later Debuchy crossed it into the box that was cleared away for Santon to attempt an effort at goal from 20 yards just wide, I'm sure that when Santon finally does score it will be a screamer!! Sissoko had an opportunity from inside the area that he drove over the bar and this was all in the first half hour! I began to think that we would be punished for not making any of these chances count, even though there is renewed optimism around I do feel when the game is actually being played that something could go wrong at any time as football is that type of game!
Ramires then got his name put in the book for what was a fairly dangerous tackle on Gutierrez, some referees have sent players off for less than the challenge but I can understand the decision as it wasn't a bad natured first 30-35 minutes and sometimes one reckless challenge doesn't warrant a red card, so looking at it again fair play to the ref! Demba Ba had an opprtunity to score getting the best of Coloccini and should have done better with his chance, the sort of chance we'd been reliant upon when he wore the black and white stripes. Coloccini then sent Ba packing with an accidental boot in the face that has broken the Chelsea Strikers nose forcing him to come off and being replaced by Fernando Torres (a pleasing sight for us all with a striker in such bad form recently). After a half of almost complete goalmouth domination the deadlock was broken from one of the most unlikely sources and also in unusual circumstances for the goalscorer. Davide Santon with the ball, crossed into the box and Jonas Gutierrez, yes Jonas Gutierrez leaping and glancing a header into the net past a stubborn Petr Cech who had done his best to deny almost everyone today! Usually a goal against one of the teams near the top of the league is greeted with a marked response from them, and i was thinking "Just get to half time, please" but if anything we were still in the ascendency and managed to carve a couple more opportunities before the break, Sissoko having an effort that struck Bertrand and deflected wide being the more notable.
Half time 1-0 to us, i dared to dream that we may actually get back to back victories, but the realist inside me remembered what had happened at Villa the second half their was like a siege, attack after attack. We know how unpredictable football can be at times and i was nervous about the second half, i literally had no fingernails left and the second half hadn't even kicked off yet!
The game resumed and there were a slow 5 minutes immediately after the break, and for every bit as well as Newcastle had played for the first half Chelsea were always likely to score, cue Frank Lampard with a rocket from 25 yards beating Tim Krul comprehensively. On a side note I think the way that Chelsea are treating a club legend like Lampard is appalling, he has been an unbelievable servant for their club and has been their most consistent player for the last 10 years! As shown with this goal he became the first player ever to score 10 goals in 10 consecutive seasons (so I am led to believe) The team looked shell-shocked and Chelsea started to look much more confident and began to control the game, Lampard had a header saved from 12 yards out by Krul shortly after scoring and then on the hour disaster struck, Juan Mata scored a quite sublime goal into the top corner of Kruls net. From the dominating to the dominated the game had completely swung in Chelseas favour in the space of just 15 minutes. That statistic I had heard so much in the last 18 months started to get at me, Newcastle had never come behind to win a game under Pardew! Would there be a response? Would we lie down and let Chelsea score 3, 4 or maybe 5. Thankfully it was the first of these and the response came just over 5 minutes later Gouffran with a shot Cech with another save but this time straight to the feet of our man-mountain Moussa Sissoko to finish with an open goal from 10 yards! 2-2 just over 20 minutes to go and the game was set for a cracking climax. Both teams at this point would not have been blamed to calm the game down, shut up shop and take a point. Thankfully nobody did that and the game remained an open flowing affair both teams wanting the points. End to end football, Sissoko had a further chance running down the left outpacing Cole and having his shot tipped wide by Cech, The Chelsea defence was set slightly more advanced than ours and it seemed that Colo and Taylor were forever on the edge of the area at this point, but we always looked dangerous on the quick counter attack, Proven again by Sissoko who picked the ball up on the left faced with Gary Cahill between him and the goal, shimmied one way and then the other before trying a toe poke passed Cech who again was equal to it. A very positive substitution was made by Pardew, Gouffran who had worked his socks off all game was replaced by the tricky Sylvain Marveaux and the impact was almost immediate, Marveaux using his trickery to get into the box towards the byline before cutting it back to Cisse who took a fairly wild swing at it, the shot was high, wide and not at all handsome, but 87 minutes in and having worked hard i think it could have been forgiven to swipe at it. With each chance missed our chances of winning became less and less likely, and in the penultimate minute of the 90 Davide Santon had the ball on the left cut inside and laid it to a certain Moussa Sissoko who hit a piledriver to Cech's right and send the entire stadium wild!! Sissoko was then brought off and replaced by Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa to rapturous applause from the Newcastle faithful. Shut up shop time 4 minutes of stoppage time all hands to the pump defensive duties. Lampard had one final great opportunity but Steven Taylor who had been immense in keeping Chelseas clear cut chances at a minimum was in the right place at the right time! That was it and the final whistle signalled the first time Newcastle had come from behind in a Premier League game to win under Pards but more importantly another 3 points to take us 6 points clear of Wigan and Villa in the drop zone!
What a rollercoaster of a game, from delight to despair and to delight again. What an incredible game of football for us and for the Neutral! Moussa Sissoko was nothing short of spectacular today with another complete performance, I know that it is early in his Newcastle career but he has all the qualities that Yaya Toure has and I think he is going to get better and better as he settles into the team. Clearly the Man of the Match from anyone who watched that game. Every single one of the players today when asked lived up to the challenge laid down when trailing 2-1. Did we deserve to win the game today? In my opinion absolutely apart from the first even 10 minutes and the first 15 minutes after half time Chelsea weren't really at the races and we had dominated proceedings and fully deserved the 3 points!
Is anyone else excited for Next Saturday? I certainly am!
Enjoy the celebrations! I know i will
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