The artful lodger? – West Ham United 1-2 Newcastle.
Posted on October 24th, 2010 | 259 Comments |
I may not be the best with predictions, although certain people seem intent on me having to make one when I never really want to, but I was spot on with the Doncaster comparison.
To refresh your memory, we went to Doncaster last season, who were in good form at the time, with the fallout from the Carroll/Taylor affair still circulating through various parts of the media. Carroll was at the centre of attention for the wrong reasons again, but he popped up and scored the winning goal to put an end to a troubling run of form for Newcastle at the time. Sound familiar?
Well it should, as yesterday was almost a carbon copy of that scenario as Newcastle beat a West Ham side, who had not lost in five games, 2-1 at The Boleyn Ground/Upton Park (delete as appropriate), and once again it was Carroll, a source of negative headlines during the week, who popped up to score the winner.
The truth is that Newcastle fully deserved the three points. Aside from a 15 minute spell at the start of the game where West Ham deservedly took the lead through Carlton Cole, Newcastle pretty much dominated proceedings. It does leave me just wondering why we need to go a goal down to start to playing though? It is a worrying trait that should be eliminated.
Still, Newcastle did start playing after going a goal down, and they got back on level terms on 23 minutes through perpetual target for abuse, and club captain, Kevin Nolan. Joey Barton crossed from the right for Andy Carroll who headed the ball back across the box to Kevin Nolan who unleashed an unstoppable left-footed shot past Robert Green and into the bottom corner of the West Ham net.
West Ham tried to regain the lead before half-time but alas it was to no avail and the two sides went in for their half-time refreshments tied at 1-1.
The second-half was all Newcastle, and the worrying thing from a West Ham perspective has to be the apparent lack of interest on display from most of their players. Avram Grant will need to knock that dangerous trait out of his players if they are to avoid getting in trouble at the wrong end of the table.
Jonas Gutierrez appears to have found another level of performance and he looked dangerous throughout. He fed Ameobi who was through on goal, only for play to be pulled back after the ref deemed that the Fenham Eusebio had fouled Danny Gabbidon. A harsh call that could have gone either way in fairness.
Spiderman then played Carroll in but the lanky, controversial, hitman was denied by Gabbidon with a last ditch tackle. Carroll lost out on that occasion, but his moment wasn’t far away.
Joey Barton, playing out on the right-wing, put an inch perfect cross into the box which Andy Carroll stuck the nut on to head the ball past a hapless Robert Green. In fairness, Green wasn’t helped out by his defence who appeared to have gone missing in action. Still, it will do for me…. 2-1 Toon!
Newcastle could have added to the score through Joey Barton, Jose Enrique or Shola Ameobi but in the end it didn’t matter and Newcastle can stroll back off to Tyneside with three points in the bag after out-performing West Ham at a ground which has traditionally been a poor hunting ground for us over the years.
Howay the lads!
West Ham – Robert Green, Lars Jacobsen, Manuel da Costa, Matthew Upson, Danny Gabbidon, Valon Behrami, Scott Parker, Mark Noble, Victor Obinna, Carlton Cole, Frederic Piquionne.
Subs – Marek Stech, Julian Faubert, Tal Ben-Haim, Herita Ilunga, Luis Boa Morte, Benni McCarthy, Pablo Barrera.
Newcastle Tim Krul, Danny Simpson, Fabricio Coloccini, Mike Williamson, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton, Cheick Tiote, Kevin Nolan, Jonas Gutirrez, Shola Ameobi, Andy Carroll.
Subs – Ole Soderberg, James Perch, Ryan Taylor, Danny Guthrie, Alan Smith, Wayne Routledge, Peter Lovenkrands.
Attendance: 34,486.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
we’re doing ok, if we can sort out home form we’ll def be mid table come end of season
i kin hate andy gray, when enrique went on surging run from our defence ghosting past about 4 west ham players he was saying how useless west ham were and it was far to easy – when bale did it against inter it was how fantastic bale was (albeit he did score whereas enrique fluffed it)