Brighton 1-1 Newcastle: NUFC throw away 2 points in a game of two halves

A dominant first half display was not enough to see off the Seagulls in this one, with a sloppy second 45 seeing us drop two points and waste a big chance to earn a third successive Premier League win.

It really was a game of two halves, with Brighton’s woeful start likely to leave Benitez kicking himself here. Failure to make it two and a drop off in intensity allowed them to come back into it – although this team is bound to struggle without both Almiron and Perez (the latter limped off on the half-hour mark).

The first half was an absolute walk in the park from our perspective. We passed the ball about nicely and took our goal well thanks to some lovely link up play between Rondon and Perez, but it was appalling stuff from Brighton.

Cardiff’s defeat at Fulham earlier in the day may have eased their relegation fears, but in a game where a win would’ve sent them SIX clear of the drop zone and made them all but safe, their approach was shameful. They gave us a ridiculous amount of space on the ball, sat 20-30-yards too deep, invited pressure and showed no interest in getting forward or getting into tackles. In the circumstances, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a shambolic approach from an opposing side – and thankfully we took advantage of that, going in at the break 1-0 up courtesy of a brilliant Ayoze Perez strike.

We are already safe, yet we out-ran them, made more sprints and had a whopping 62% possession – a stat we rarely tend to excel in – showing just how awful they were in the opening 45.

That said, we were very good in the first half, with us looking slick on the ball and disciplined off it. Hayden was sharp in the tackle, Shelvey pulled the strings, Schar made several trademark bursts forward, Ritchie was typically tenacious and Rondon and Perez linked up perfectly again, with the Venezuelan’s chest down being smashed home by the Spaniard – his 12th goal in all comps this season (see goal above).

The second half was poor and pretty frustrating. Losing two points doesn’t mean a great deal at this stage, but it was disappointing to see against a team that was there for the taking.

I thought Manquillo defended well, stopping crosses into the box down their left, while Schar, Hayden and Rondon all put in decent shifts – although the latter did look a little lost after Perez went off, with Kenedy being so wasteful and wayward in his place. Shelvey showed his class at times, picking out the odd lovely passes, but he’ll be wishing he made a bit more of an impact given the amount of time he was afforded in the middle of the park.

Here’s how the bottom half of the table looks after today’s results:

Elsewhere today, Cardiff suffered a devastating 1-0 defeat at Fulham, Southampton confirmed survival with a 3-3 draw at home to Bournemouth, West Ham pulled off a shock 1-0 win at Spurs, Palace and Everton were involved in a stalemate and Selhurst and Wolves won 2-1 at Watford in the battle for 7th.

TWO games left to play for us now, with the title-deciding clash with Liverpool in the Toon next weekend followed by a final-day of the season trip to Fulham:

  • Liverpool (H)
  • Fulham (A)

A game of two halves. It was lovely to watch in the opening 45 but the second half was a reminder of how much we struggle without one or two of our star men in attack.

Onto Liverpool next weekend!

(Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

About Olly Hawkins

As a Junior Magpie since birth and season ticket holder, I eat, sleep and breathe all things NUFC! Here at the blog, I aim to bring you news, views, match reports and transfer exclusives as and when I get them.

95 thoughts on “Brighton 1-1 Newcastle: NUFC throw away 2 points in a game of two halves

  1. When we got relegated I think the Mackems were having a really good laugh about us having to play Burton Albion. Well, not only did they play Fleetwood Town in the 3rd Division but they got beat, ending their automatic promotion chances.

    Karma is a b!tch sometimes.

    Where is Fleetwood anyway?

      (Quote)

  2. Where is Fleetwood anyway?

    next to Mac 😆

    No seriously, it’s on the coast in Lancashire .

      (Quote)

  3. Uncle Ed has reprinted Hayden’s interview explaining why he wants to leave Newcastle. I still think if we double his wages he will stay. His reasoning for leaving is that his girlfriend’s family live in South Wales. With Cardiff relegated (almost) there is nowhere even close in the PL. I have said this before on numerous occasions but Brighton is 3 hours away and they will be relegated next year anyway.

    I sort of understand what he is saying about wanting to be close to his child but from what he has said his daughter is doing fine now.

    Ronaldo has young kids and he lives away from home in Turin. I think they speak a different language there as well from what Ian Rush said so he also has that to contend with. Rafa works in Newcastle and his youngest is still in school.

    Hugo lloris is from Paris but he seems fine living in London.

    All of the Man City and Man U transplants from all parts of the world seem OK with Manchester. And from when I visited about 15 years ago I would definitely complain about that sh!thole – good music in the 80s and 90s though.

      (Quote)

  4. And if anybody tells me in the pub on Saturday that “May the 4th be with you” I will hit them over the head with their Millennium Falcon and stuff their Chewbacca up their ****. The first Star Wars was Ok, but they should have stopped with Ewoks.

    19 more and counting is just more than I can take.

      (Quote)

  5. Yeah, Eric, I reckon if we doubled his wages (he’s probably on £20k a week?) he will still be a low earner but he will be earning a lot more and feel more important and he’d be much more likely to stay. Let’s be honest, she really shouldn’t have got with a footballer if she wasn’t prepared to move around a bit. Or maybe she’s giving him the curly finger after being caught out sending rather lewd pics to people on WhatsApp…

    On Rafa I still don’t see how he stays. Jabba doesn’t bend and Rafa won’t and can’t take a job where the chances of success (relative or otherwise) are diminished by the policies the club have which reduce the possibility of him doing the best he can.

      (Quote)

  6. Could have done with Liverpool still being in this game to be honest. Although with any luck it will have tired them out a little.

      (Quote)

  7. I have a cunning plan for Saturday – rent Lionel Messi for the game! Liverpool dominated a lot of that game and still lost 3 nil. I also think they have the better squad but Messi made the difference. Suarez was good as well but Liverpool really should have scored at least 1.

    My theory about direct free kicks being a waste of time goes out of the window when Messi is involved. But so do most accepted facts about football because he does things that nobody has ever seen, and nobody else does.

      (Quote)

  8. That free kick from Messi was outstanding… almost as good as the one Rondon scored for us. ????
    It all comes down to whether Liverpool want the prem title or the champions league… their title hopes are low at best as I don’t feel that City will drop points, so do they choose Champions league? If so, they have to go for it next week in the home tie, which gives us a chance… we have a pretty good home record against Liverpool as well. ?

      (Quote)

  9. Messi is the greatest player of my time – possibly of all time.
    Ronaldo is brilliant and in any other era would be no.1, but Messi is just too good, too consistently brilliant.

    He was 5th for Ballon D’or by the way ???‍♂️???‍♂️???‍♂️

      (Quote)

  10. It’s the mark of a truly great player. They’re unstoppable. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop a Messi free kick like that.

      (Quote)

  11. Cr@p, I have just realized we are in for a full week of talk about “those wonderful European nights at Anfield” and probably 50 mentions by commentators during the game.

    I would give Liverpool less than a 1% chance. The y have to win by 4 clear goals and the away goals rule doesn’t come into play. Barca came back from more against PSG but it just doesn’t seem possible that Messi or Suarez will not get at least 1, So we are looking at 5-1 at best. I just don’t see it.

      (Quote)

  12. OllY: I don’t trust anybody with the name Danny.

    Danny Mills, Danny Murphy, Danny Kaye was Walter Mitty. And Danny LaRue, enough said!

      (Quote)

  13. I think the Barca result was the worst possible for NUFC. But also, do we really care if we get beat by that Liverpool team? They are very good and there would be no disgrace.

    Still, Man City do not play until Monday and Liverpool are virtually out of the CL so it is essentially all or nothing against NUFC.

    And… I wouldn’t be smug if I was Citeh because Leicester have Jamie Vardy in very good form. They absolutely annihilated Arsenal, so who knows?

      (Quote)

  14. An excerpt from the Official NUFC Press Release:

    “The Club are aware that there is a demand for tickets from Liverpool fans in excess of their allocation… it is a breach of ground regulations for away fans to be in home areas, and they will be ejected if discovered…”

    If you see anybody in possession of a Scouse accent and grinning like a fcking monkey before he tells his one joke about Jeermans that is Stan Boardman. Do not approach him. Inform a Steward as any contact with his so-called Scouse “humour” could be detrimental to your psyche.

    Hopefully, demand for tickets will have been so great that Jamie Carragher cannot get in.

      (Quote)

  15. I checked online and to my great surprise Stan Boardman is still alive at age 81. There is a chance you might bump into him at the match but don’t mention the war. It ended 74 years ago and his great grandchildren are still hearing about it. I doubt that he would know much about it though being only 7 years old at the time.

    In other news…

    Regular Scousers have complained that it impossible to get a ticket due to the 2,500 ex-player pundits having first dibs due to their connections at Sky, The BBC, ITV, Talksport, Radio Merseyside, Channel 4, BT, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun, etc, etc.

      (Quote)

  16. So, the pundits all agree it will be 2 nil to Liverpool.

    We can therefore all rule that score out.

    I am going to wait for Olly’s pre-match info to make a prediction. I am worried we don’t have Almiron to give them something to think about.

      (Quote)

  17. Thanks Olly. Was just saying I would wait until what you had to say before deciding on the score 🙂 Haven’t followed the reports much this week so I am not up on who is injured.

      (Quote)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *