This game was a hard watch for fans of both teams. For 88 minutes of this game Newcastle United were awful. It looked like we couldn’t string a pass together after multiple long balls up field. If this is progress (after 18 months!) I would hate to see what regression might look like.
And then, completely out of nowhere, £60 Million worth of talent, Joelinton and Callum Wilson, combined to make it one nil. Then barely a minute later, the Toon went up two goals thanks to a deflected Joelinton shot at goal. To be fair, this was Joelinton’s best game in a Newcastle shirt by a long way – playing just off a main striker appears to be the best way to get him involved. Joelinton now has 3 goals in 47 appearances. Prolific!
Don’t get me wrong, this is a great three points for Newcastle, but a better side, and a team that presses high up the field would have been much more successful than Palace were, and that’s where it went right for Steve Bruce. Newcastle were always in it, and thanks to a Federico Fernandez block, defended stubbornly.
This is typical Steve Bruce though. Stay in the game, play risk adverse hoofball football and hope you get lucky in front of goal. Fortunately the £20 Million spent on Callum Wilson is looking like a bargain, so when the team underperforms as a whole, but you have a player who can put the ball in the net, you might nick a few wins.
I think we’ll nick a few more, but it won’t be easy to watch.
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