In a rather predictable kick in the bollocks, of the kind that we have become accustomed to over the years, an injury-ravaged Everton side deserved the points against an injury-ravaged Newcastle side. In truth the home side probably deserved to lose and could have scored more goals as Newcastle pushed up looking for an equaliser. It wasn’t to be though and Newcastle remain ninth in the Premier League table on a day when a win could have seen them climb to seventh.
The match was a pretty tight affair to start with. Neither team gave much away and goalmouth action was restricted to virtually nothing with the bulk of the game being played in the middle of the park as both sides poked and prodded whilst searching for an opening.
The first chance of the game came on 17 minutes and fell for Everton’s Mikel Arteta who was shown inside by Steven Taylor and unleashed a fierce shot at goal which Steve Harper smartly palmed away. Just six minutes later though it was the home side who made the breakthrough when Mike Williamson fed the ball to Kevin Nolan in the box. The midfielder saw his angled shot palmed away by Tim Howard although unfortunately for Everton the rebound fell nicely to Leon Best who headed into an unguarded net to give the home side the lead.
From then it was Newcastle who took control of the game and did all the running as they looked to extend the lead. Best and Nolan both went close as the home side started asserting their authority. But within the space of five minutes the game was to be turned on it’s head.
Everton forced an equaliser when Mikel Arteta was allowed a free run down the left side of the pitch. The Spanish midfielder found Leon Osman in the box who finished smartly from 12-yards out. Then just five minutes later the away side took the lead when Leighton Baines pinpoint cross found Phil Jagielka who prodded the ball past Steve Harper and into the back of the Newcastle goal via the crossbar.
All across the back four their were mistakes being made. Nobody was any less guilty, although the usually superb Jose Enrique did seem to be really struggling. He was withdrawn before half time due to what looks to be some sort of shin injury.
Newcastle were just not at the races today, and that continued in the second half as they pushed for an equaliser. They had enough possession in dangerous areas to try and get the goal and the had enough about them to force the play, but they very rarely threatened the Everton goal with the usual cause being that the final ball was just that little bit off.
Leon Best thought that he had equalised, but referee Howard Webb blew the whistle well before the ball hit the back of the net and the goal was ruled out for a push on Jagielka. TV replays showed the foul to be very weak, but it was also just about the right call as I would be screaming blue murder if one of those went against us.
Everton had numerous chances to put the game to bed but failed to capitalise on the gaps created by the home side searching for the equaliser. A combination of some last ditch defending, Steven Harper, and Everton’s profligacy in front of goal all combined to ensure that the win was restricted to just the one goal.
Injuries are stacking up now, which is why the fact that we now don’t play for another two weeks comes as some light relief. Hopefully by then we will manage to get some of our players back on the pitch.
Talk of Europe and top six finishes is dead, if it was ever really alive in the first place that is. What we must do now is concentrate on getting as many points as we can.
Howay the lads!
Newcastle: Steve Harper, Steven Taylor, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Danny Simpson, Kevin Nolan, Cheik Tiote, Jonas Gutierrez, Leon Best, Peter Lovenkrands.
Subs: Tim Krul, James Perch, Shane Ferguson, Danny Guthrie, Michael Richardson, Shola Ameobi, Shefki Kuqi.
Everton: Tim Howard, Tony Hibbert, Phil Jagielka, Sylvain Distin, Leighton Baines, Phil Neville, Jack Rodwell, Mikel Arteta, Leon Osman, Jermaine Beckford, Louis Saha.
Subs: Jan Mucha, John Heitinga, Seamus Coleman, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, Shane Duffy, Jose Baxter, Victor Anichebe.
Referee: Howard Webb.
Attendance: 50,128.
No probs, Jill! See ya lata!
Always good craic on this site. My fav on the interweb 😉
Speaking of good craic, where the hell are Batty and Richie?
OHurley(Quote)
Jill take it easy 😉
OHurley put your tounge back in or are ye catching flies 😆
Big Dave(Quote)
lmao 😉 I DO like the older hinnies hehe
OHurley(Quote)
toonsy, batty richie,ect gone into hideing,cannot take it eh.
ganning me-sel noo.
DAVE if your stopping in watch film on ch4 TAKEN its a good film mate
icedog(Quote)
9pm i think
icedog(Quote)
Ice I have only watched 1 film in the last 8 or so yrs I never have the time or patience to watch films 😀
OHurley 😆 😆 😆
Big Dave(Quote)
thats if you can get oot on tv owr there like
icedog(Quote)
Ice hows the birds doing
Big Dave(Quote)
DAVE havent got a one now mate,just didnt have time back and forth to malta.you get them birds you wanted few weeks back?
icedog(Quote)
Toby @ 54 – if you flicked more thoroughly yo would see that I didn’t say we deserved to win.
AlanPardewProject(Quote)
Ice I got rid of 2 odd birds there a month ago but still never got anymore and will have to wait now as my Macaws and Cockatoos are down on eggs atm so dont want to disturb them.
Aye they do tie you down abit sometimes I would love to get rid off them all but I just couldn’t 🙁
Big Dave(Quote)
Put simply – it was a load of bollocks
Moreno(Quote)
DAVE wishing i had kept a couple now,never said before but dau has a bad health problem,would have kept my mind off things,has real bad lumps in you know where,but blog helps a bit like
icedog(Quote)
Does anyone know if it is in Lovenkrands contract that he has to try an overhead scissor kick every game
Toby le Rhone(Quote)
Ice sorry to hear that mate 😥 I think it helps to keep the mind active I always found it helped me stop worrying so much when I have something else to keep my mind busy .
Thinking about you’s 😉
Big Dave(Quote)
CHEERS mate,ime off now laters
icedog(Quote)
Toby just wondered are you budalovesa patsy ❓
Big Dave(Quote)
Ice catch you lata mate 😉
Big Dave(Quote)
We would perform better in matches if we played this before leaving for the pitch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-YDCvHQ64Q&feature=fvst
funkyjesus(Quote)
Big Dave
One and the same
Toby le Rhone(Quote)
Toby le Rhone no probs mate just noticed the Avatar 😉
Reet away to play Xbox with the wee lad be back in abit 😀
Big Dave(Quote)
Chris Hughton is now a pundit on ESPN it seems.
Just need Joe Kinnear there and our last 3 managers work for ESPN.
funkyjesus(Quote)
5 things which p*ssed me off about today
1. AP got his tactics all wrong today. Saylor is not a RB I’m afraid. Every time arteta or anyone came at him he backed off at least 10 metres often more. Simpson isn’t a RM at all. So basically I felt our right hand side was pretty useless throughout. Although the fact that there were so many positional changes can’t have helped the flow of our play.
2. The goals we conceded were pathetic. I could have scored the first! And the second any one of about 3 players could have stuck thaty in the net if they were an inch taller.
3. Our lack of competence in front of goal again. We lack EPL quality strikers.
4. Howard Webb. It is easy to blame the ref. But he was poor throughout. I haven’t seen the replay of the disallowed goal but from side on it looked fine! He also let everton kill the pace of the game throught by taking hours to take throwins and free kicks. They took the **** there.
5. A 10 and a half hour round trip to see us lose and play badly!!!
pearceet(Quote)
5 things which p*ssed me off about today
1. AP got his tactics all wrong today. Saylor is not a RB I’m afraid. Every time arteta or anyone came at him he backed off at least 10 metres often more. Simpson isn’t a RM at all. So basically I felt our right hand side was pretty useless throughout. Although the fact that there were so many positional changes can’t have helped the flow of our play.
2. The goals we conceded were pathetic. I could have scored the first! And the second any one of about 3 players could have stuck thaty in the net if they were an inch taller.
3. Our lack of competence in front of goal again. We lack EPL quality strikers.
4. Howard Webb. It is easy to blame the ref. But he was poor throughout. I haven’t seen the replay of the disallowed goal but from side on it looked fine! He also let everton kill the pace of the game throught by taking hours to take throwins and free kicks. They took the **** there.
5. A 10 and a half hour round trip to see us lose and play badly!!!
5 positives
1. Jonas’ crossing seems to have got a lot better
2. Harper had an excellent game.
3. We had key players missing so thankfully this won’t be a week in week out performance (I hope)
4. Shane Ferguson looks like he can be a good player in a couple of years time.
5. I have nothing……..
pearceet(Quote)
What have I missed then? 😆
Just taken the wench out for a slap up Indian meal. Done the food shopping for the next week. DVD at the ready. Beers with Mark-o tomorrow 🙂
It’s a hard life 🙂
toonsy(Quote)
I see Batty is off kissing **** on ,org then 😉
toonsy(Quote)
@98
Jonas’s crossing has got better? 😆 😯
He didn’t put a single cross in today that went to one of our players, he took one corner – that didn’t even get to the front post.
AndrewNUFC(Quote)
fook of toonsy ya c unt
batty(Quote)
your startin too sound like the ladyboy 😉
batty(Quote)
Batty 😆
toonsy(Quote)
that chuck is an ***
batty(Quote)
Andrew
Well I’ll watch football first at some point but I thought he put some decent balls in. I may be wrong
pearceet(Quote)
My god. Though after the speech by Pardew about them being a ‘wounded animal’ we would come out and do better. We totally switched off, looked disinterested and deserved nowt. Sunderland getting a rare point which they probably worked hard for a deserved just rubbed salt into the wounds. I thought we could get a double over the bin-dippers, (without Cahill and Fellani there 2 best players). As it was we deserved nowt and got nowt, Europe my ****!!!!!!!
!!!!!! 
!!!!!!!1
DJG(Quote)
By By again Bolton. Just shows like, If we had won these two home games, we would be Europe chasers, as it is forget it. One point from 2 home games! Come back next year and dream about europe then.
DJG(Quote)
man that first goal for em was softer than butter…propa school boy.
off topic but thank **** there is an english nufc blog (non xenophobe 😉
dont write much on the net but im beered so here is another thought…why does everyone speculate bout contracts constantly…b4 the net no1 knew **** and it served us better. players came and went now it’s like mass hysteria
peace out boys we aint goin down so lets get at stoke…gotta win cos i’m there in the flesh for that 1.
warwick(Quote)
I’ll tell you what, Match of the Day has about 3 minutes for our match as usual, but Leon Best is looking like an absolute beast. There was a clip there where he just pushed about 3 guys in the box to win the ball.
Best is looking the business at the moment.
funkyjesus(Quote)
funkyjesus
Best was about the only player to do anything today, the rest were just asleep.
DJG(Quote)
Just saw he goals…what an immense ball from Williamson for the toon goal, pretty tricky stuff for a gangly centre back..well done that man…
the 2 Everton goals…well…the first one was just lucky, we had more than enough people in and around the box, we just didn’t defend well enough…Taylor should have defended the wide space instead of being pulled inside… Second goal..great ball in but we could have defended the free kick a bit better….
Another immense crowd today…pity we couldn’t have nicked a point..
Munich Mag(Quote)
Apparantly Mikel Arteta was that good today he is ‘trending’ on twitter. Maybe because he’s been ***** the last 6 months until today!
Moreno(Quote)
Oh OHurley! I’ve borne the brunt of many an insult in my life but being called, ‘an old hinny’ has to be the worst! 😥
But luckily for me I do live in sunny Florida, so I will probably be able to get over it! 😀 😎
Jill(Quote)
Jill- I am terribly regretful for insulting you!! I meant nowt by it, just havin’ a go at my old pal Big Dave hehe! You’re still quite the spring chicken, so to speak
I live in Nashville, but was born in Jacksonville, FL. I’ll always regard it as home 🙂 Great to know that my home state has a proud black n white wearin’ Geordie in it!! Hwtl!!!
OHurley(Quote)
‘Spring chicken’!!! 😯 🙄
😆 HWTL
Jill(Quote)
Go on Jill. Don’t let that OH get away with it 😉
toonsy(Quote)
Tell you what, yesterday I thought that Wenger was just being his usual moaning self, but for once I can actually see why he is upset. A penalty not given when it should have been. A two footed tackle was only a free kick. A goal disallowed for offside which wasn’t offside. A goalkeeper who had the game off his life……
Sunlun deserved **** all.
toonsy(Quote)
How funny was his reaction post match though?
“I am too disgusted to even talk about it”
😆
Moreno(Quote)
I actually have to agree with him for once. How Bramble didn’t give away a pen and get dent of for either the pull or the push on Arshavin is beyond me 😕
toonsy(Quote)
True enough, just seems like refereeing decisions are becoming the focus point of the majority of Premier League games at the moment.
It’s a tough job granted, but is the quality of refereeing in the Premier League good enough?
Moreno(Quote)
There’s a blog in that somewhere 😉
Have a peek at your e-mails when you have a moment 😉
toonsy(Quote)
There’s enough about Howard Webb alone for a blog….
new thread up I see
😛
Moreno(Quote)
Good point Moreno @ 122. I certainly think with the technology available that a quick review wouldn’t do any harm. Don’t want to stop the flow of the game but maybe something like they do in tennis where each team is only allowed to question a certain amount of calls per game. Something like 3 each to stop frivolous challenges.
Jill(Quote)
There is just so much money riding on these sorts of decisions. That goal over-ruled for Arsenal being completely onside could cost them the Premier League title and if they lose out by a point or two (which is likely to be the case) your looking back to that game and saying you were robbed.
The penalty ion the Blackburn game was amazingly soft too, as Keen rightly said, if you are going to give a penalty for that then every premier league game will have 10+ penalties
Moreno(Quote)