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Season 2019-20
Bournemouth (a) Premier League

 

 
Date:
Wednesday 1st July 2020, 6.00pm.
Live on Sky Sports/Sky One/Pick


Venue:
 Vitality Stadium.

Conditions: Unimpeded.
 
Programme: None.

No programme 
 

     

Bournemouth

Newcastle

1 - 4

 

Teams

Goals

5 mins Some loose passing by the home side outside their own box was seized on by Sean Longstaff who won the ball off Jefferson Lerma. Allan Saint-Maximin played in Dwight Gayle who had time to steady himself and fire into the far corner of the goal in front of the Ted McDougall Stand. 1-0

30 mins Javier Manquillo charged into the area and surprisingly laid the ball to his left rather than shoot. The attack seemed to break down but Saint-Maximin's trickery took him past three defenders to the left byline and his expert pull-back teed up Sean Longstaff to fire into the top of the net.

ASM claimed after the game he had told "Longy"
to be waiting for exactly that sort of a pass.
2-0

Half time: Cherries 0 Magpies 2

57 mins Saint-Maximin slotted a perfect pass through for substitute Miguel Almiron to run towards the box. Miggy took the ball in his stride before floating a lovely effort into the far corner of the net with his right foot. 3-0

77 mins Another forward foray saw Jonjo Shelvey release Valentino Lazaro who was just onside. The Austrian made his way into the box before firing an unstoppable shot past Aaron Ramsdale. 4-0

90+4 mins Nathan Ake got goal side of his marker Andy Carroll to nod a Junior Stanislas free-kick across goal, allowing Dan Gosling beat Emil Krafth and poke the ball in from close range. 4-1

Full time: Cherries 1 Magpies 4

We Said

Steve Bruce:

"Some of the football we played was arguably the best since I've been at the club. Fair play to the players, the ones that came in brought a freshness to us, that energy.

"I was delighted with how we played except for how things ended, but I'll forgive them for that!

"Saint-Maximin is a joy to watch at the moment. He was a constant threat, played very, very well and he is providing that end product which we need.

He has wonderful talent. Every time I go to a ground and people haven't seen him play, they always say what a talent he is. He can only get better.

"I felt we had lost that cutting edge, creating an opportunity to try to win a match. We enjoyed playing, that was pretty evident. There was a certain cutting edge to them. Long may it continue.

"If we can get into the top 10 that would be a great achievement after a lot of people wrote me and the players off.

"But even at my age that just makes me roll my sleeves up and show them. It was a bit disrespectful at times.

"It makes you work harder and spurs you on. I’m delighted to manage this great club.”

They Said


Eddie Howe said:

"When you’re in our position looking for a lift, it’s a hammer blow the other way
(to concede so early in the game). We believed the team was in a good place: it’s a bit of a head-scratcher for us at the moment.

"It's tough at the moment to sit here and pick out the positives. We know the situation we're in is difficult.

"We know tonight was not a good night. I think me sitting here and saying otherwise would be foolish, but I do still believe we can get out of the position we are in.

'I do still believe in the players and the group we have, I have no doubt about that. But we have to take tonight on the chin.

"I don't doubt that
(the players' effort). It's very easy from the outside to think differently, especially with the manner of the games at the moment, the lack of a crowd.

"I can see close at hand what it means to the players. How much they are hurting. Tonight wasn't pretty but I can assure everybody it wasn't through a lack of effort.

"
We have to find answers quickly, we have a tough run of fixtures to come but I have no doubts we can turn this around."
 

Stats


Steve Bruce's side notched up their fifth away win of the season, following successes at Spurs, West Ham, Sheffield United and Southampton. With three trips left, that total is their best return since the seven they notched up during the 2013/14 campaign.

Since then they've managed just two in 2015/16, three in 2014/15 and four in 2017/18 and 2018/19.

Cherries v Magpies - all time:

2019/20 won 4-1 Gayle, S.Longstaff, Almiron, Lazaro
2018/19
drew 2-2 PL Rondon, Ritchie
2017/18 drew 2-2 PL Gayle 2
2015/16 won 1-0 PL Perez
1991/92 drew 0-0 FAC
1989/90 lost 1-2 D2 Quinn
1966/67 won 4-1 FR Bennett 2, Davies, Robson.
1963/64 lost 1-2 LC McGarry pen

Newcastle remain unbeaten here in the top flight, with two victories and two draws from four visits. The Magpies have taken the lead on all four of those games, leading either by 1-0 or 2-0 at the interval.

There was another successful outing for the orange change strip:

Spurs (a) PL won 1-0
Rochdale (a) FA drew 1-1
West Bromwich Albion (a) FA won 3-2
Bournemouth (a) PL won 4-1

NUFC biggest PL away wins:

2019/20 Bournemouth 4-1
2018/19 Fulham 4-0
2013/14 Hull City 4-1
2007/08 Spurs 4-1
2005/06 mackems 4-1
2005/06 West Ham 4-2
2001/02 smoggies 4-1
2001/02 Bolton Wanderers 4-0
2001/02 Leeds United 4-3
1998/99 Derby County 4-3
1998/99 Coventry City 5-1
1993/94 West Ham 4-2

One has to go back to January 2018 to find the last time that we recorded successive PL away wins before tonight (West Ham 3-2 then Stoke City 1-0).

Newcastle scored before the interval for the first time since their visit to Wolves in January, managing two in the opening period for only the second time all season after the 3-2 win at West Ham, (they were 2-0 in at HT).

United extended their unbeaten PL sequence to five games, their longest run in that competition since concluding the 2015/16 relegation season by going six games without losing.

Bournemouth's added-time consolatation goal denied the Magpies back to back away clean sheets in the Premier League for the first time since December 2013 (Manchester United 1-0 then Crystal Palace 3-0).

Victory here gave Newcastle their third PL double of the season, following home and away wins against Southampton and Sheffield United. It also continued the side's recent good run at venues on the South Coast:

2017/18 Brighton (a) lost 0-1
2017/18 Southampton (a) drew 2-2
2017/18 Bournemouth (a) drew 2-2

2018/19 Southampton (a) drew 0-0
2018/19 Bournemouth (a) drew 2-2
2018/19 Brighton (a) drew 1-1

2019/20 Southampton (a) won 1-0
2019/20 Bournemouth (a) won 4-1
2019/20 Brighton (a) ????

Valentino Lazaro followed up his maiden club goal in the FA Cup at West Bromwich Albion with a debut Premier League strike, the first Austrian to score for us in that competition and our 151st different PL scorer.

Sean Longstaff had also netted in the FA Cup (at Oxford), but this was his first PL goal of the current season.

Miguel Almiron became the first Newcastle player in 2019/20 to reach the coveted Bobby Shinton* threshold of seven goals in a season, in his case three in PL and four in the FA Cup.

(*For the uninitiated, this journeyman striker topped our scoring charts in the 1980/81 season, a particular grim campaign when we managed just 30 goals in 42 Division Two games. What made it worse was that Bobby won the mythical shiny boot despite missing the last 14 games due to injury).

Jonjo Shelvey leads the way in PL stats only with five goals and still needs one more to draw level as our lowest PL top scorer (John Barnes in 1997/98 and both Nobby Solano and Carl Cort in 2000/01 reached the half dozen).

Dwight Gayle netted his 31st competitive Newcastle goal (eight in the PL, 23 in the Championship. He was lauded during the TV commentary for reaching the landmark of 100 career goals but actually make it 101:

Dagenham & Redbridge 7 (all league)
Peterborough United 13 (all league)
Crystal Palace 26 (15 league, 9 League Cup, 2 FA Cup)
West Bromwich Albion 24 (all league)
Newcastle 31 (all league)

The odd one appears to be the 24th and final goal Dwight bagged for WBA, which came in a Championship playoff game - a bit unfair to exclude that...

Former Magpie Dan Gosling became the third SJP old boy to find the net in games featuring Newcastle this season, following on from Ayoze Perez (Leicester City) and Patrick van Aanholt (Crystal Palace). A fourth also managed it in pre-season; Mathieu Debuchy (Saint Etienne).

Gosling has a habit of scoring late goals against us, netting here in the 89th minute of a 2-2 draw back in February 2018.

United won a PL game on a Wednesday for the first time in 20 attempts, since Papiss Cisse's brace ensured a 2-0 success away at Chelsea in May 2012. Since then we've played 19 PL games home and away on that day of the week, losing 15 and drawing four.

This was Newcastle's first competitive domestic fixture in July - we have played in this month previously though, in the good old Intertoto Cup.

Opta reported that Saint-Maximin's trio of assists made him just the third NUFC player to do that in a PL game. They followed that up by naming the previous two occasions as Andy Cole v West Ham (a) in March 1994 and Moussa Sissoko v Norwich City (h) in October 2015.

However a week before that visit to West Ham, Newcastle defeated Swindon Town 7-1 in the PL at SJP - and Cole racked up three assists in that game.

With the Magpies 2-0 up, Cole's 67th minute shot was parried and turned home by Rob Lee. By the 76th minute it was 4-0 before Cole played a ball through for Steve Watson to make it 5-0. 5-1 then became 6-1 on 79 minutes after Watson forced in a rebound from Cole's blocked shot. 

(From the PL definition of an assist: "Players who have their shots saved, blocked by a defender or denied by the woodwork can earn an assist if the ball then falls to a team-mate to score or results in an own goal.")

NUFC after 32 games - last three seasons:

2017/18: 38 points, 10th (scored 33, conceded 41)
2018/19: 35 points, 14th (scored 31, conceded 42)
2019/20: 42 points, 13th (scored 33, conceded 43)




 

Waffle


The Geordie Dancer

The Dorset coastline may currently be congested, but United found plenty of room to roam in Bournemouth on Wednesday across a nearby grassed area...

The Magpies recovered from their FA Cup exit three days earlier to score four Premier League goals for the first time this season and pass the 40 point barrier with a routine success at the Vitality Stadium.

First half efforts from Dwight Gayle and Sean Longstaff left the orange-clad visitors in total control, before substitutes Miguel Almiron and Valentino Lazaro bruised the Cherries further in an equally one-sided second half.

The only blemish for Steve Bruce's side was surrendering a clean sheet in second half added time, SJP old boy Dan Gosling bundling the ball home with the only effort that the hosts got on target all night.

Our hectic schedule made rotation advisable and five new faces appeared from Sunday: messrs Rose, Schar, Hayden, Almiron and Carroll all benched in favour of Krafth, Bentaleb, Shelvey, Joelinton and Gayle.

There was  talk of Allan Saint-Maximin being rested after a subdued FA Cup game but he kept his place here and was soon back to his exhilarating best.

Within five minutes of the start he'd slotted a pass into the box for Gayle to fire home after Longstaff had caught Jefferson Lerma idling on the ball.

And by the half hour the Frenchman had let the home defence a dance on the opposite flank, swaying to the left hand byline before pulling the ball back for Longstaff to net with a rising left footer.

The second scorer was soon forced off with what looked like a pulled muscle, having got up after two previous hefty tackles, and was replaced by Almiron.

That added another variable to what was almost a rotating front four of him, Gayle, Saint-Maximin and Joelinton - the latter who was in a wide role here.

A shapeless and disheartened home side were playing like they were already in the Championship and allowed United to have unprecedented levels of possession.

Having come from behind here to deny us victory on our two most recent visits, a response from Bournemouth after the restart was inevitable - and they did have the ball in the net after just 30 seconds.

Dominic Solanke's shot came back off the goal frame and was converted by Josh King, but he was rightly ruled offside and with that decision went his side's hopes of salvaging anything from this game.

Soon after Saint-Maximin had seen his effort from distance he laid on another goal; galloping forward down the left before laying the ball infield to Almiron.

The Paraguayan continued his diagonal run into the box before supplying a classy clipped finish over the goalkeeper reminiscent of Peter Beardsley.

0-3 behind, a rare home advance ended with David Brooks pinging his shot off the crossbar before Saint-Maximin made way for Carroll (minus what must have been his FA Cup beard).

It goes without saying that every display of this level increases ASM's resale value and makes it more likely that he'll be sold on, if the takeover isn't concluded.

Being bleak about this, if Ashley remains in control, we not get to see him in the flesh again - at least in our kit. By the time we're back the Frenchman will be away.

ASM's departure though didn't end the scoring; Shelvey driving down the centre and Lazaro springing the alleged offside trap to score his first PL goal.

A fifth should have followed, but when Lazaro smashed a shot off the underside of the crossbar, fellow replacement Isaac Hayden skied it over the unguarded net - and his blushes weren't spared when a look across the line confirmed no offside flag was raised ("miss of the century" he later called it).

There was to be a slight sting in the tail when the hosts got one back right at the end of added time, but that failed to detract from a memorable night that featured four excellent team goals.

The last time Newcastle scored that many times away from home was on that memorable day at Fulham last season; Toon fans arriving by boat and floating home on a tide of optimism and over-priced drink.  

Fast forward 14 months and things were rather different here, goals greeted with nothing more than yelps from the players echoing around empty stands.

Having scored precisely one goal in the five PL games before lockdown, it's entirely typical of this club to now conjure up goal fests with none of their followers present: four here making it eight in three closed door games.

How long though before scenes of epic celebration that greeted Matt Ritchie's late equaliser here last season get to be repeated? Next season - or never?

The phrase "new normal" is now much-used; the worry is that blanket coverage of every PL game on TV is quickly becoming acceptable - and redrawing the football map for those who would usually be in attendance.

Home fans will doubtless return at some point next season, but we have genuine concerns that away travellers will be excluded for longer under the pretext of public safety - required only for a fake soundtrack.

Hopefully we're being overly gloomy, but for tonight at least a hasty rewrite of one song was required:

"This is the best trip I've never been on."


Biffa


Page last updated 10 February, 2021