Newcastle United were handed a significant boost to their hopes of finishing in the top five places following on from Tuesday night’s game in the Premier League.
Here is what happened and why it felt like a big night for Newcastle United.
What happened on Tuesday?
It may not have been the best result possible for us – some felt a draw would’ve been ideal – but we remain in a strong position to qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Manchester City scored a last-minute winner against Aston Villa at the Etihad to win 2-1 and end Unai Emery’s side recent streak of wins.
The result has pushed the Cityzens outright into 3rd place in the table, Nottingham Forest to 4th, and ourselves to 5th.
Was it the right result for us?
In an ideal world, some will argue that Matheus Nunes would not have grabbed the winner in the last minute and both City and Villa would have dropped points on Tuesday night.
However, if recent Premier League history has shown anything, is that the last team you want to compete against with high stakes on the line is Pep Guardiola’s side.
Notoriously consistent and successful in the run-in – where they have kind fixtures – the last thing we’d need is knowing we need to keep bettering Man City’s results and hoping they’d slip up.
A win on Saturday huge to break free from Villa
We host Ipswich at St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon, and whilst we go into the game as heavy favourites, a true statement win might be needed.
The Tractor Boys travel up North knowing that anything but a win means certain relegation for them.
However, after our own loss to Villa this past weekend, our goal difference took a big hit whilst Manchester City and Nottingham Forest improved their own.
Beat Ipswich on Saturday and we will not only go back above Man City, but also five points clear of Aston Villa with four games to go, and a goal difference that will be very hard for Villa to overturn.
So a true vintage Newcastle performance is needed from the boys on Saturday: relentless, high press, free-scoring, everything that we’ve come to expect from the Eddie Howe (and Jason Tindall) sides who’ve shone so often this season.
It doesn’t matter what others do it’s down to us
Absolutely glorious(Quote)
Forget City – after their 200M January outlay to fix their problems (must be nice to be able to spend your own money!) they are back to normal and will win all their games and finish 3rd – its what they always do on the home straight whilst we were never going to win all of our games. Our fight was always with NF/AV/Chelsea for the two remaining places. Win the home games and hopefully we will get over the line.
Steve(Quote)