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Bolton (h) Premier League
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Date: Monday 9th April 2012, 3pm Venue: St. James' Park Conditions: stunning |
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Newcastle United |
Bolton |
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2 - 0 |
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| Half time: | 0 - 0 | |
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| Score Sheet: | ||
 Ben
Arfa (73) Cisse
(83) |
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Teams |
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Krul |
Bogdan Ricketts Ream Wheater Steinsson Mark Davies Reo-Coker Pratley Kevin Davies Petrov Eagles |
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| Substitutes: | ||
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Ferguson for Perch (46) |
Ngog for Kevin Davies (78) Miyiachi for Eagles (78) Klasnic for Pratley (82) |
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| Subs not used: | ||
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Elliot Abeid Tavernier Gosling |
Jaaskelainen Alonso Knight Sordell |
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| Bookings: | ||
Gutierrez
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Reo-Coker
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| Dismissals: | ||
| None | None | |
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Referee: Mike
Jones (Cheshire). At one stage we did wonder whether he was being worked
via remote control from the sidelines by fourth official Howard Webb. |
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Crowd:
52,264
including 1,000 Bolton fans, who dutifully chanted "Fabrice Muamba"
a few times. The player is expected to be discharged from hospital over
the coming days. As might be expected, the support from the stands was loud and sustained, with special effort devoted to boosting the fortunes of Demba Ba. News filtering through of the mackems starting to lose heavily at Everton caused periodic roars, while a big cheer greeted confirmation that Norwich had won at White Hart Lane. This week's platters that mattered: The Clash "Complete Control" (1977), Doctor Feelgood "Roxette" (1974) and The Small Faces "All or Nothing" (1966). Worth coming to hear them, frankly. |
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Goals |
Half time: Magpies 0 Trotters 0
73 mins Tim
Krul bowled the ball out to Yohan Cabaye, who pushed it forward to Hatem
Ben Arfa, who was lurking in his own half. Leaving Ricketts on his
backside with a quick
turn, he then sped off down the middle of the pitch with Bolton players
mesmerised by his progress - four left in his wake before he made it into
the box and found the back of the net. Now that's what I call route one. 1-0
83 mins Cabaye again played what proved to be the crucial pass,
hoisting the ball forward down the United right over halfway in the
direction of Shola Ameobi. With his back to goal, the substitute spun his
marker Ream (who made a comedy dive to unsuccessfully claim a foul) and
chugged forward.
Reaching the right hand side of the Bolton area, Shola swung over a centre
just before Wheater arrived and the ball curled beyond the backtracking
Steinsson and nicely on to the toes of Papiss Cisse, who looked
offside as he tapped the ball past the flailing Bodgan from barely a yard 2-0
Full time:
Magpies 2 Trotters 0
We Said |
Alan Pardew commented:
"I’ve never ruled the Champions
League out, I’ve just talked about trying to win the next game. This
weekend will be important for us because if the semi-final results go our
way, we could be in Europe. If that works in favour, then really there is
nothing else to go for but the Champions League.
"The semi-finals will be important to us and we’ll be looking at them closely. If the results go against us, we’ll be up against Chelsea for a European place and that will be tough on us. It would be tough to take if we finished with this points total but didn’t make Europe. We’re not giving up on anything, apart from winning it.
"I said
all along if we can get to the last six games and be in and around (the
top six) we'll just give it a go and that's what our fans want to see
us do. Having an honest commitment to winning the game has got us where we
are now. We've got Stoke at home next - a very difficult game - and we'll
try and win that.
"It was a special, special goal from Ben Arfa and we needed that
today. He can make the difference in tight games and not many players are
blessed with the talent he has. It was a fantastic goal. He did it in the
FA Cup against Blackburn this year. He will probably get the coverage he
deserves for that goal. His goal, his performance and his work rate were
magnificent.
"You don't see many like it. Hatem's ability to manoeuvre the ball at
speed took him past a few defenders then, the cleverest part was, that at
the end, he just lifted the ball a bit so the centre-half couldn't make a
tackle. Not many players can do that.
"Bolton had stopped us playing - they'd doubled up on Hatem and we
hadn't taken advantage of the extra space that created.
"Demba (Ba) was frustrated with me because I'd just had a go at him
in an attempt to get a reaction. I brought him off because I thought Shola
would go on and win us the game but Demba is big and strong enough to
cope. I hope he gets the winner in our next game against Stoke."
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Owen Coyle said:
"It was a big ask
because we had one day's preparation, but our performance was miles better
than our game against Fulham. From start to finish it would be fair to say
there wasn't too much difference between the sides, and for large periods
of the game it would be fair to say that we were the better side.
"We came here knowing that we faced a team riding high in the Barclays Premier League, with a good squad and having Champions League aspirations, as they fight it out at the top end of the table. We put in a battling performance and pushed them all the way.
"There is no doubt that it was a wonderful finish by Ben Arfa for his goal but we are disappointed that we didn't deal with the run. I think Sam Ricketts slipped in the centre and that allowed him to get away. Saying that, we were still very much in the game. We made some changes and brought on Ivan Klasnic and David Ngog and pushed forward. Ultimately we were undone by the second goal, but that was clearly offside.
"Despite the result, our performance was terrific today. We created a number of chances - Chris Eagles and Mark Davies made the Newcastle goalkeeper work hard and Darren Pratley was just a whisker away from converting too. It is a difficult result to take because for large periods of the game we stood toe-to-toe with Newcastle, but we leave disappointed.
"Our fate and our destiny is in
our own hands. We showed last month that when we bring it all together we
can secure back-to-back wins. I said to the players after the game that if
we bring that level of performance and quality to our next six matches we
have enough to ensure that we pick up points and we stay in the Barclays
Premier League."
Stats |
United have now won five successive top flight matches, a feat last accomplished in April 2006. That run then ended with a 0-0 draw at Birmingham City (the Championship season of 2009/10 saw them notch up two separate runs of seven straight league victories). The Magpies completed their second win double of the season, having also recorded a 2-0 win at the Reebok Stadium. The first came against Blackburn Rovers and the chance to register three more (Stoke, Wigan & Everton) remains. It's now 308 minutes since we conceded a goal, when Shane Long profited from some defensive uncertainty early in the second half of our win at West Brom. Papiss Cisse has scored ten goals in nine games since joining the club (eight starts) and has now netted in five consecutive top-flight matches. The last player we can find doing that was Alan Shearer in December 2001 and January 2002 (also matching it in the closing four games of that season and the opening fixture of 2002/03). And Cisse's tenth goal of the season
was also our 50th in the Premier League in this campaign. We
ended last season with a tally of 56, but that was the first time
Newcastle had reached the half century since the 52 recorded in
2003/04. The sixth Premier League goal of
Hatem Ben Arfa's career meant that he'd accumulated more
top-flight goals for his current club than a certain £35m
signing of Liverpool - until a late winner at Ewood on Tuesday evening
drew Carroll back level on half a dozen. Trotters on Tyne - Premier League
visits:
With two games remaining on home soil, we've won ten, drawn five
and lost just twice in the Premier League here this season
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Waffle |
Goals from Hatem Ben Arfa and Papiss Cisse maintained Newcastle's European charge at St.James' Park on Monday afternoon as they made it five victories in succession. The win took us up a place into fifth and Chelsea's 1-1 at Fulham enough to see us remain there, a Norwich victory at Spurs meaning that we're level on points with 'Arry Redknapp's side, who sit fourth on goal difference.
A close-fought affair with little goalmouth action worthy of note was graced by an astonishing solo strike from Ben Arfa with seventeen second half minutes left to play. The win was then secured when Shola Ameobi set up Cisse for a close-range finish - his tenth goal in just nine games.
Alan Pardew's side welcomed back Fabricio Coloccini after a two game absence but were without Cheick Tiote - the versatile James Perch relocating from central defence to a midfield berth alongside Yohan Cabaye, who was passed fit after picking up a knock against Swansea on Friday.
The Magpies boss had witnessed Fulham's 3-0 romp at the Reebok on Saturday, but that could at least been partly due to the Manager of the Month "curse" falling on Owen Coyle - having claimed the March award after his team racked up three successive Premier League victories.
In front of a virtual full house, United struggled to make any headway against a solid Trotters side and too often were reduced to retaining possession via a succession of sideways and backwards passes - shades of Swansea's Good Friday frustration against us.
A long-ranger from Coloccini was United's sole effort on target, with centres and set pieces routinely gathered by Adam Bogdan. The exception to that was a dangerous Ben Arfa free kick that the Trotters 'keeper reached before a clutch of United players and punched clear - only for the ball to rebound off defender Ricketts and deflect wide.
With Jonas Gutierrez reverting to a central midfield spot after the break, Shane Ferguson was introduced to play down the left. Bolton began the brighter though and Tim Krul blocked one Chris Eagles effort before a Martin Petrov cross whistled across his six yard box.
United began pushing Bolton back closer to their own goal, with usual suspects David Wheater and Nigel Reo-Coker both prominent as some rugged and illegal defending was ignored by referee Mike Jones, to the annoyance of the crowd in general and Cabaye in particular.
Having struggled to pose a threat himself or link up with strike partner Cisse, Ba's frustration at giving way to Shola Ameobi just after the hour saw him apparently avoid a handshake offered by his manager as he left the field.
That change though proved to be pivotal, with Shola better equipped to withstand the defensive pressure of Wanderers and possessing of a long-standing Wheater intolerance - tangling with him as far back as December 2004, when the defender was in the smoggy stiffs.
The noise levels were cranked back up when Ben Arfa launched a free kick just wide of the Gallowgate goal, but the Frenchman soon had 50,000 fans on their feet to acclaim a goal that was at least the equal of his solo effort against Blackburn here back in January.
Having done his best to act as a target man against taller opponents (and routinely found himself fouled in the process), Cisse then came to prominence in the closing stages of the game as he finally gained some support.
Invigorated by the presence of Shola, the number 9 shot narrowly over and struck the goal frame from close range - straying offside during both moves. In between though, Cisse was in the right place to net from point-blank range after Ameobi broke into the box from the United right. That accomplished the remarkable feat of scoring ten goals in nine games, but was almost a sideshow in the wake of the goal that had come ten minutes earlier.
While United were winning, the mackems were going down 0-4 at Everton and now lie seventeen points behind us ensuring that we'll finish the season above them and retake possession of the mythical top dogs/bragging rights plaudits. They should have stuck with the Geordie....
Our lowest possible finishing position is
now eighth, although defeat for Liverpool on Tuesday would mean we would at
least equal the seventh place of 2005/06, with our fifth in 2003/04 now looking
distinctly achievable. A runners-up spot is still mathematically possible.
Wow.
The next chapter of the story comes this weekend, when Liverpool and Everton
do battle at Wembley on Saturday in the FA Cup Semi Final, before Spurs and
Chelsea clash there the following day. Were Everton to make it through, then
they could be in line for a place in Europe regardless of whether they went
on to win the trophy or not - but with multiple scenarios still possible,
that's not a given.
Never mind messrs Bellamy, Carroll and Enrique - if miserable Kenny would
like to belatedly atone for the moribund performance of his Newcastle team
at Wembley in 1998, then unwrapping the Toffees would do for starters.
Biffa