Krul - Some great saves today

A pretty good performance all round had Newcastle fans cheering throughout the 90 minutes at the Hawthorns today. In a game which is the start of a relentless Championship campaign, Newcastle United showed , in patches that they could well come to terms with the Championship, sooner rather than later. Holding a minutes applause for the late, Great Sir Bobby Robson, teams got under way and Newcastle to say the least, were looking the most dangerous. Indeed the second half was much the same, but only for a young man called Tim Krul, Newcastle might have walked away from The Hawthorns with nothing to show for their troubles at all.

From the first whistle, Alan Smith was flying in with lunging tackles, very precise and well timed ones I may add as well. Jonas added some width on the left and Duff on the right but the question is posed, why wasn’t Jonas on the right wing and Duff on the left? Obviously a tactic of Chris Hughton which did pay dividend for the first half alone. No signs of Joey Barton in the starting line up as he sat it out on the bench. Jonas, at times looked very dangerous and definitely had the better of Zuiverloon his marker, but there was no end product, something we lacked all last season too. Damien Duff blazed an early opportunity just above the up right, and Ryan Taylor, with a free kick skimmed the top right hand post as well.

Amidst all this, somehow, even though Newcastle had the majority of possession, Shelton Martis popped up to squeeze home a goal line scramble, and Shola Ameobi managed to give his fellow team-mate Steve Harper a kick in the head, leaving the stopper concuss and eventually departing from the field. So we went in trailing and Tim Krul replaced the dazed Harper. Krul wasted no time in getting involved in the action, pulling off a brilliant save with his finger tips, a truly memorable stop, to be followed by many others. However, our persistence paid off and Damien Duff hit the back of the net. Some good work from Kevin Nolan found himself with the ball and placing a brilliant ball in the path of Duff, who slotted home very nicely.

It was the first time I could say Newcastle played some very good football, for a long time , but Duff’s goal was well-worked. We move into another week, and rumours are suggesting that a takeover could be completed on Monday. Didn’t we hear that 2 months ago? Anyway, if the lads can keep up the good work and we bring in a few players then you just never know what could happen. Certainly we saw encouraging signs today, against what are regarded as favourites to regain their Premier League status at first attempt.

Comments welcome 🙂

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