Jim Pearson's blog
At Last!!
17 January 2008
Newcastle 4 Stoke City 1
Some people will say, "Well, it is only Stoke City" but there is more to it than that. The state of despair that we were in anything could have happened! And then back came K.K.!
In theory he may have had little to do with this performance but the whole place was lifted to such a degree that it would have been difficult not to play well.
I really believe we were helped by suspensions because we had to play an attacking side and attack we did.
Owen was alert to slot home from close in--can you imagine the impact if Kevin cajoles him back to his best!?--and then Emre was sent off for stupidly running his studs down an opponent's shin only yards from the ref.
Big Sam would have sent on defenders and tried to hold on for the last hour! But, credit to Nigel Pearson. He sensibly played 4-4-2 with the wingers just tucking in and it worked a treat.
Cacapa looked like a dodgy defender to me but he scored the vital second making a near post run from a corner to head in. We played good stuff and Milner put the game to bed when he struck a nice shot into the corner.
As Stoke pushed forward, we caught them on the break and the very impressive N'Zogbia laid the ball into the path of Duff who finished neatly.
Lawrence scored a late consolation but nothing was going to stop the euphoria sweeping round the ground.
Come on Kev, bring back the good times!
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