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HALF TIME: Newcastle United 0-0 Manchester City
It could easily be 3-3, 3-0, 0-3 or anything in between. But here we are. Some big misses, some strange officiating, plenty of fun. More please!
45 min +1: Guimaraes clatters Gonzales out on the City left. Everyone lines up on the edge of the Toon box. Everyone expects Foden to swing one into the mixer, but he slips the free kick down the inside-left channel instead. There’s too much juice on the pass and Pope collects.
45 min: There will be two additional first-half minutes.
44 min: Doku dribbles dangerously down the left and cuts back for Haaland, who swivels in mid-air, sending the ball looping over the bar. Goodness knows how this game is still goalless.
42 min: Dias splits Newcastle’s defence with a pass down the inside-right channel for Foden, who one-twos with Cherki on his outside, then sidefoots wide left when free on the penalty spot. Yet another big miss when you’d surely have put all of your money on the net bulging! Lovely move, though.
40 min: Haaland takes down a long ball on the halfway line and spins Schar, who brings him down. Again, you’d expect a booking; again, there’s no booking. This is becoming an extended free-jazz riff on the laws of the game.
38 min: Livramento is causing City quite a few problems out on the right. Now he feeds Murphy into space along the touchline; Murphy wins a corner off Gvardiol. Tonali sends it in, but his delivery fails to beat the first man. City clear. Hall tries to resurrect the move, but only manages to float the ball into Donnarumma’s arms.
36 min: Doku drives down the inside-left channel and feeds O’Reilly ahead. O’Reilly cuts back for Haaland, who should score … but slams his first-time shot from eight yards straight into Pope’s chest! Another big miss. Newcastle attempt to counter, and Gvardiol almost rugby-tackles Woltemade. You’d expect a booking, but it’s just a free kick. There have been some pretty strange refereeing decisions in this match.
34 min: Newcastle half clear the corner, then Cherki slashes wide left from the edge of the D.
33 min: … Hall heads behind under pressure from Haaland. Foden to deliver again.
32 min: What a miss, though. City go up the other end, Nunes winning a corner down the right off Schar, from which …
31 min: Murphy is sent skittering down the right by Livramento. He crosses low for Barnes, who surely can’t miss from six yards … but slams his sidefooted shot wide left! What an astonishing miss! No offside flag to save his blushes, though had Barnes scored, VAR would have had to get the old rulers out to check both the defence-splitting pass and cross.
30 min: Barnes probes down the left and curls into the mixer. City clear their lines again. Newcastle are giving as good as they’re getting.
28 min: Livramento barges his way down the right and wins a corner off Gvardiol. He takes a whack for his trouble. Eventually he gets back up. Hall takes the set piece … and Haaland slashes it clear. Some frustration in the crowd.
26 min: Another big chance for Woltemade, released down the middle. He aims for the bottom left but again Donnarumma comes to the rescue. Another fine save, the City man’s second one-on-one triumph of the match.
25 min: Woltemade clips Cherki in the midfield. This is getting a bit scrappy, though nobody’s losing their temper yet.
23 min: … so both teams have legitimate grievances regarding possible penalty kicks. Throw in a couple of big chances, and somewhere in the multiverse it’s 2-2.
21 min: Doku cuts in from the left and shoots. The ball hits Thiaw on his arm, which is slightly raised. No penalty. Some more material for Howard Webb to riff on in next week’s edition of Whose Law Is It Anyway?
19 min: Schar definitely caught Foden on the top of the boot. Foden had already got his shot away, but that shouldn’t make any difference. It was a late challenge and a foul … but for some reason VAR clears it. No intervention. Stick with the on-field decision. Nobody knows anything any more, partly because of Howard Webb’s performances on that comedy-improv TV show of his.
17 min: Doku dribbles at full pelt down the middle, then lays off to Haaland on his left. Haaland enters the area only for his shot to be blocked instantly by Livramento. Then City come again, Foden entering the box down the inside-right channel, his shot flying wide right. He’s caught late by Schar on the ankle, and this could be a penalty. VAR to check.
15 min: Gonzalez has a nibble at Guimaraes in the centre circle. The whistle goes for a foul, which irritates Newcastle further as Joelinton was in the process of making good down the middle with the loose ball. The referee not making friends with the home supporters.
13 min: Hall barrels into the City box down the left. He’s gently nudged from behind by Dias and loses the run of his legs. He goes down in a tangle, and wants a penalty. You’ve seen them given for less, but the referee points for a goal kick. The home fans are not happy. Neither is Hall.
12 min: Barnes feeds Hall on the overlap down the left. Gvardiol clears a deep cross with Woltemade lurking. Then play’s switched to the right. Murphy whips in a cross and Woltemade plants a downward header towards the bottom-right corner. Donnarumma gets down to parry and City clear their lines. Great play all round.
10 min: A Sky Sports stats bomb: City have already made 76 passes to Newcastle’s 11.
9 min: It’s probably for the best that City didn’t score from that corner. They were generously given a second chance to take it, after Schar had been pushed over amid a six-yard-box melee. Newcastle thought they should have had a free kick, with some justification, but the referee opted to deliver a lecture on pushing and shoving instead. Slightly strange.
7 min: … Cherki jinks in from the left and pearls a low drive towards the bottom left. Pope is behind it all the way.
6 min: Doku looks for Haaland again, down the inside-left channel. The striker wins a corner off Livramento, from which …
5 min: City are kicking towards the Gallowgate End in this first half. “The fact that unless they win Newcastle will be below Fulham is both implausible and an indication of how badly wrong Newcastle’s season has gone,” writes Richard Hirst, “given that own goals are likely to be Fulham’s top scorer come the end of the season.”
4 min: … so already we’ve got a pretty good sense that this game isn’t going to end goalless.
2 min: Barnes should have scored …. and the same can be said for Haaland, sent clear down the middle by Doku’s pass! Haaland attempts to float a chip over Pope, who rushes out of his box, doing enough to put his man off. Haaland’s chip bounces harmlessly wide left of goal.
25 seconds: Donnarumma gets away with a dreadful pass out from the back. Joelinton nips in ahead of Foden, who didn’t want the ball, and pokes to Barnes. The Newcastle winger, on the left-hand edge of the D, aims for the bottom right but his curler is weak and the keeper makes amends. What a start that could have been!
Eddie Howe and Pep Guardiola greet each other warmly, then Manchester City kick off. A huge roar from the St James’ Park faithful. Oh me lads.
The teams are out! Newcastle wear their famous black and white stripes, City sport their equally storied sky blue. We’ll be off after a few bars of this …
… while everyone’s favourite Toon fan from Down Under, MBM regular Chris Paraskevas, writes: “I’m certainly not buying into the panic over league form that leaves us potentially in a relegation battle with Liverpool. It’s a long season ahead. Many twists and turns. Eddie will get it right: we just need to keep the faith! PS. England fans dealing with sleep deprivation and psychological trauma, I know how you feel on a weekly basis. (Not really, Australia almost always win.)”
Eddie Howe’s turn to speak to Sky. “We love playing here … our home record is really good … we are confident here … we want to try to express ourselves in the right way … certainly we have a lot of work to do in the Premier League to get back to our very best consistently … the team has to function really well to limit [Erling Haaland’s] space and the potential damage he can do to us … our technical delivery has to be really high … we certainly have some really good technical players on show today … it was a two-week break … much needed to refocus our mindset … we will attack these games we have … a really busy spell between now and the end of January … unrelenting but also really exciting … a lot of different challenges to come.”
Howe also reports that Kieran Trippier has a “very minor hamstring issue”.
Pep Guardiola talks to Sky Sports. “Now the real season starts … no international breaks … every two, three days … everybody will be involved … [Newcastle] are an aggressive team … quality … speed … so aggressive … defend compact … transition … a top Champions League team … Eddie [Howe] has created a fantastic team.”
The Premier League table has a brand-new look as a result of all the earlier kick-offs. Chelsea have leapfrogged Manchester City into second place after their 2-0 win at Burnley, though City can reclaim that position by winning or drawing this evening. Newcastle have also been knocked down one place, from 14th to 15th, thanks to Fulham’s 1-0 win over Sunderland. Like City, they’ve got a chance to get back to where they started the day, but they’ll need to win this match to do so. Tim de Lisle has all the details of the 3pms in today’s Clockwatch.
Manchester City have won their last four matches in all competitions to the cumulative score of 13-3. No wonder Pep is in the mood to crack wise with a few zingers. Will Unwin reports.
Newcastle United make three changes to their starting XI after the 3-1 defeat at Brentford. Tino Livramento, Fabian Schär and Lewis Hall replace the injured Kieran Trippier, the suspended Dan Burn, and the benched Sven Botman.
Manchester City are very much in If It Ain’t Broke mode following their 3-0 dispatch of Liverpool. They name an unchanged side.
The teams
Newcastle United: Pope, Livramento, Thiaw, Schar, Hall, Guimaraes, Tonali, Joelinton, Jacob Murphy, Woltemade, Barnes.
Subs: Ruddy, Ramsdale, Botman, Elanga, Willock, Alex Murphy, Ramsey, Miley, Neave.
Manchester City: Donnarumma, Matheus Luiz, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Silva, Gonzalez, Foden, Cherki, Haaland, Doku.
Subs: Trafford, Reijnders, Stones, Ake, Marmoush, Ait Nouri, Savio, Khusanov, Bobb.
Referee: Sam Barrott.
VAR: Craig Pawson.
Preamble
Newcastle have won just one (!) of their last 35 (!!!jesuswept!!!) league meetings with Manchester City, losing 28 of them, while their manager Eddie Howe’s personal league record against the club is P18 D2 L16. There’s really no other way to frame this, is there? Godspeed, Magpie Nation.
Not wishing to further harsh what remains of Newcastle’s pre-match buzz, but City have scored in every one of their last 33 league matches against them. That’s not good, which is an eagle-eyed observation snapped into even sharper focus by the fact that only three sides in English top-flight history have bettered such a run against the same opponent, and two of those have been against … well, look …
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Chelsea v Newcastle United: 37 games between 1933 and 1969
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Tottenham Hotspur v Newcastle United: 35 games between 1922 and 1961
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Everton v Blackburn Rovers: 34 games between 1925 and 1962
Oh Newcastle! You really need to kick this habit. Starting tonight? Well, the Toon have lost their last two league games, while Erling Haaland already has 14 goals domestically this season – and 32 in 20 overall – so, once again, godspeed. Any members of the Toon Army, whose blood may be boiling upon reading the contents of this preamble, can thank us later if we’ve tempted the Football Gods into something that skews the stats, bordering on seismic. Kick-off is at 5.30pm GMT, and Nick Woltemade had better lace up his shooting boots this evening, is all we’re saying. It’s on!
