Was that fun? I don’t really know. A penalty for City after 26 seconds was the last thing this game needed really; they quickly built on Aguero’s conversion with two more goals and that was that. Silva, who had a delightful game and set up Dzeko’s goal beautifully, added two very nice second-half goals but the pace was friendly-like for two-thirds of this one.
So City move to within five points of Chelsea, which keeps the title race interesting. Newcastle kept trying but the feeling persists that, if you could really do with three points, they are the side in the league you’d probably most like to face – even though they sit in an innocuous enough 11th. It was calamity after calamity from them today, and John Carver’s hopes of a long-term gig can’t have been helped by this.
So, think on all that and I’ll bid you goodnight. Back tomorrow for a couple more of these, so maybe we’ll interact then. Thanks for reading/corresponding, and have a great evening.
Full-time: Manchester City 5-0 Newcastle
Easy, easy, easy.
90+2 min: Into the wall. Kolarov gets a second bite of the cherry though, and that’s hit well wide.
90+1 min: Free-kick to City, 25 yards out. Toure? Kolarov? It’s right of centre, so the latter.
90 min: The fans, too. Many of them have gone home.
88 min: Just playing out time now. The players, not me. Well, me too. To be honest, it’s been that way since City went 3-0 up. Silva’s two interventions half an hour ago were not particularly characteristic of the last 65 minutes.
Updated
86 min: The denouement is a nice ball from Taylor across to Cisse, who winds up for another volley but bobbles it well wide. I think he may have been offside anyway. Now another change for Newcastle, as Obertan comes on for Gouffran, who seemingly was playing today.
85 min: Newcastle getting some considerable time on the ball now. Which is nice for them.
83 min: Krul is forced into action again, Kolarov getting a free-kick past a two-man wall and seeing the ‘keeper shovel the ball wide of his left post. From the corner, Dzeko gets up and the ball goes just wide – via his hand, in a totally unnecessary manoeuvre, and he’s booked.
81 min: Now Dzeko does play Lampard in, but he’s tackled as he tries to pull the trigger.
80 min: Dzeko counters down the left and Bony is in the middle. The Bosnian looks for his new team-mate but doesn’t get anything like enough on his attempt to slide a ball across.
79 min: Newcastle win a free kick near City’s left corner flag after Perez, who has not played badly, is fouled. Zabaleta clears it.
77 min: A couple of corners later, Colback inadvertently flicks on Kolarov’s ball at the near post and it zips out for another flag kick. That one beats everyone and Sissoko ushers the ball away.
76 min: Bony should have his debut goal! Toure returns a poor Krul clearance with interest and the new boy is in the clear, but Krul redeems himself by getting a foot to the ball and it loops wide!
@NickAmes82 this 18 minute goal drought is likely to have Pellegrini on his toes. Odds shortening on Klinsmann? #mcfc
— Anthony Behan (@technopolitics) February 21, 2015
74 min: Navas, whose sole aim in life is to sling right-sided crosses into the box, takes an age to find the space to attempt exactly that but Haidara blocks.
72 min: More slapstick from Newcastle and this time it’s newbie Taylor, who can’t exactly say that this game’s pace was too hot to pick up from the off. His short back-pass is seized upon by Dzeko, but Krul is out smartly to save.
71 min: A Newcastle change, with Ryan Taylor on for the stricken Janmaat.
70 min: Bit of a break here as Janmaat is seen to by the physio. This game will just taper off in the last 20 minutes now. But maybe not, here’s Lampard, on for Nasri! Should he score, let’s hope he doesn’t celebrate out of respect for Chelsea.
69 min: Frank Lampard is about to join us.
68 min: Navas gets a run on Haidara and stands a really tempting cross up for Dzeko, who gets above Williamson but can’t find the target.
67 min: Matt Dony sticks his neck out – “At half time, I was thinking about that 4 goal comeback Newcastle managed against Arsenal. I’m going to lay my cards on the table and state for the record, I don’t think it’s on this time.”
Sure?
64 min: Bony’s first involvement is a ball that can’t quite find Dzeko, but City keep possession and Nasri, who seems to have set the ball up for a shot with his right foot, tries one turn too many. He’s dispossessed.
63 min: Sissoko, comfortably Newcastle’s best player here, crosses towards Cisse but Kompany gets it away. He then gets onto a quickly-taken Colback free-kick but a marginal offside is given.
61 min: Joseph Ward ponders – “Should points gained and goals scored really count in the league against a team like Newcastle. who want to only win or lose enough to maintain a mid-table finish. It is almost becoming the equivalent of throwing a game.”
60 min: And here’s Bony, on for Aguero. Rapturous applause for both parties.
Updated
59 min: Bony is coming on for his debut! But first of all, Jesus Navas replaces the brilliant Silva.
57 min: Newcastle, eh? Nobody really does ridiculous as well as them.
57 min: Silva, irrepressible now, scoops one into the area for Zabaleta, but Coloccini gets across to tackle before he can get his shot in. From the corner, Mangala gets up but can’t head on target.
55 min: Well, those two goals came somewhat out of the blue. Fine finishes from Silva, of very differing kinds, but Newcastle have barely made City work for their goals here.
54 min: This time Toure floats a ball over the top for Aguero, whose chest-down does not seen entirely intentional but falls beautifully for Silva, who runs onto the bobbling ball and lashes left-footed across Krul, who dives to his left but has no chance, from 20 yards. Stunning finish.
Goal! Manchester City 5-0 Newcastle (Silva 53)
Oh wow.
Updated
53 min: Aguero forages infield, finds Nasri on the right of the box, he pops a pass in to Silva and the Spaniard’s first touch is lovely, letting the ball go across him before taking him clear of his defender and slipping the ball past Krul unfussily. Just like Nasri earlier, he seemed to have all the time in the world – but he made that time himself.
Goal! Manchester City 4-0 Newcastle (Silva 51)
A pretty fun testimonial though.
Updated
51 min: City enjoy a lengthy spell of possession, which ends when Silva can’t find Nasri. It’s testimonial-like at the moment really.
48 min: Remember when every spectacular effort Cisse tried went in? That was fun, for a while.
47 min: Good save from Joe Hart! Sissoko runs down the right and aims a diagonal ball to Cisse. It screams “volley” all the way, and the striker makes a decent contact – it’s deflected and Hart has to react well to tip over.
Second half underway!
Any hope for the visitors?
The teams are back out now, and there’s a change. Poor old Anita has been replaced by Mehdi Abeid.
As for Newcastle, it’s not been quite as hopeless a performance as the one I mentioned at the top of the show, but they’re actually a goal worse off at this point than they were last season. They’ve had a go and have seen plenty of the ball, but City have a couple more gears if they need them. And the errors Newcastle have made, Anita’s brain-fart and some poor positioning by Haidata in particular, were really poor.
Updated
Half-time: Manchester City 3-0 Newcastle.
Well, rather easy. Once Vurnon Anita had clumsily given City that early penalty there seemed little real chance of this being a contest, and the impression was hammered home when Nasri and Dzeko scored nicely-taken goals in the next 20 minutes. City need not do much more, and probably won’t given that Barcelona lie in wait three days from now.
Updated
45+1 min: Not a lot going on here now, and I suspect that might be the case after the break too. So by all means write. Topic? Errr....other characters from The Bill who could be football managers/players?
45 min: Arran Ridley says – “Dear Molly, my football club is a useless soulless husk and not the same club I fell in love with all those years ago. I think I’d like to break up with it but with so many years together I know nothing else and I’m scared of being alone. Please advise me on what to do. Yours,Out of Toon, Midlands.”
I’ll pass this on to Molly.
44 min: Peter Oh writes – “Aguero slots a penalty past a rooted Krul? Disappointing, that the Dutch keeper has lost the penalty whisperer/Jedi mind trick skills to get into the heads of opposing spot-kick takers at the World Cup.
“About City putting the Newcastle match to bed early in light of Barcelona’s weekday visit - maybe they needn’t worry so much. Barca just lost to Malaga.”
43 min: Toure slides Dzeko in this time, and he should really take it on and shoot in the inside-right channel. He tries to find Nasri instead and it’s intercepted.
41 min: Now Nasri finds Toure, who can spring Dzeko free if his first-time lay-off is right, but he doesn’t quite get enough on it. Nice, unselfish idea.
41 min: Silva gets past Janmaat and has men over but, uncharacteristically, can’t pick one out. Then Kolarov gets into a fine position inside the area but another cutback fails to find any of the lurking home players.
39 min: Yaya Toure is booked now, for fouling the involved Colback.
39 min: This feels as if there are another one or two goals in it, no more than that. No records to be threatened here. City still quite happy to be standoffish and spark into life when a clear opportunity presents. Remember, they have Barcelona here on Tuesday so wrapping this one up nice and early has been pretty much the perfect scenario.
All the money in the Premier League, but there are only two clubs that are much good. It's getting like the old SPL @NickAmes82
— Gary Naylor (@garynaylor999) February 21, 2015
On which topic, did you see the Palace fans’ banner earlier?
36 min: Dzeko gets in a bit of a mess with an attempted lay-off for Silva, but the ball comes out to Fernandinho. His crisp 30-yarder is straight at Krul.
35 min: City sweep upfield after some lovely play by Nasri, but Kolarov – who has men in the middle – overcomplicates the cross with an attempt at a cutback to the edge of the box. Nobody in sky blue is there.
33 min: Colback’s corner barely leaves the ground and Zabaleta gets it away.
33 min: Yaya Toure’s attempt at playing Nasri in on goal straight from the free-kick does not go well. Newcastle counter, Haidara crossing beyond the back post and, at length, Sissoko winning a corner on the right.
31 min: A rash, rather weird ball to nobody from Coloccini with the outside of his foot puts City on the attack, and then the Argentine fouls compatriot Aguero quite nastily midway inside his own half. No card though.
Updated
30 min: City’s penalty, we are told, was the second-fastest since football began in ‘92. I made it 26 seconds.
29 min: City are now doing to Newcastle what Newcastle had perhaps hoped to do to them – letting their opponents have plenty of possession while wreaking havoc when it changes hands. Colback has just been booked, in the meantime, which is his 10th yellow card of the season and thus a two-game holiday.
27 min: Kolarov centres low towards Dzeko, but Haidara clears for a corner with a hint of a hand. Dzeko then can’t quite get enough on his header from the flag kick.
Updated
25 min: Sissoko goes on another decent run, deep inside the area, but shoots over from an angle. Newcastle have been fairly game going forward, but it’s a hopeless cause now.
@NickAmes82 it took you to 3-0 to say game over? @NUFC was dead after 26 seconds... pathetic
— John (@Hayler97) February 21, 2015
I was being generous/trying to keep you interested.
24 min: What a ball by Silva though. Floating it wouldn’t have worked, but he had to get it off the ground to reach Dzeko. He drilled it, and Dzeko’s take-down was sublime.
23 min: Silva, 40 yards out, pings a wonderful, zippy pass to Dzeko that bisects Coloccini and Haidara. Dzeko chests down, eyes the target and finishes delightfully for what is his first goal since 27 September. City might as well keep at it here, Newcastle’s defence is all over the show.
Updated
Goal! Manchester City 3-0 Newcastle (Dzeko 21)
Lovely goal. Game over.
Updated
21 min: Newcastle busying away still, and Colback tries a nice little through pass that isn’t quite in tune with Perez’s run.
20 min: Could have been three. Dzeko cuts back from the right, Zabaleta dummies, Aguero screws a presentable opening across goal and Silva isn’t far away as he slides in to try and make his colleague’s shot good.
Updated
19 min: Sissoko, who scored here in the League Cup win, has a pop but it’s cleared by a defender.
18 min: To myself, I keep accidentally calling John Carver “Jim”. You know, after The Bill. It’s fair to say DC Carver would be busy at the moment if poor defensive play was a criminal offence. But Newcastle have a free kick now 35 yards out....
15 min: This wasn’t feeling like the sort of night on which City would be minded to run amok, but with Newcastle in this sort of form anything is possible. Carver will be beside himself – the Magpies had actually responded fairly well to going behind.
13 min: Too easy. Silva works the ball to Dzeko, who enters the area and puts in a low ball that is deflected out to Nasri midway inside the area. A shuffle, a feint, and he’s past a defender and lifting the ball over an already-committed Krul from six yards. Lovely, cool finish but more poor defending. City haven’t been made to work for this at all but it looks beyond Newcastle now.
Updated
Goal! Manchester City 2-0 Newcastle (Nasri 12)
I was saying?
Updated
11 min: We haven’t actually seen City yet, aside from the insanely early penalty.
10 min: Decent effort from Janmaat! The Dutchman marauds up the right and cut inside with no challenge offered, and drives in another long-range shot that worries Hart, who dives to his right and is glad to see the ball go just wide.
8 min: Perez shoots well over from 25 yards after some good, patient front-to-back play from Newcastle, who are at least responding.
7 min: The resulting shot by Haidara, after Colback played it short to him, is deflected but Hart scampers across his goal to prevent a corner.
Updated
7 min: A bit of a flicker from Newcastle now, Sissoko driving forward and being fouled by Fernandinho in a promising area.
6 min: As for City, will they go for the jugular or simply look to manage this one out? The sting has been completely taken out of this game. Nothing has happened since the goal.
4 min: “Well, this game was fun. I guess I’ve got some unexpected free time this afternoon,” chirps JR in Illinois.
3 min: What on earth do Newcastle now? Well, it’s far too early to change the gameplan. Easy to say, but they just can’t let this rattle them – important now to dig in and simply stay in the game. Then you never know.
Goal! Manchester City 1-0 Newcastle (Aguero pen 2)
Slotted to the left of Krul, who doesn’t even dive. My word, what a start here. And what calamitous play by Anita.
Updated
1 min: Oh my goodness. Vurnon Anita doesn’t control a simple pass properly, Dzeko nips in, Anita lunges, clear foul, penalty.
Updated
Penalty to Manchester City!
26 seconds in!
Peep! They're underway!
City do the honours.
Scott Bassett fears – quite rightly – for Newcastle’s defence, statting us up thus:
“If Newcastle are going to rely on a solid defensive foundation to hit City on the break, they’re going to need a good defense shipped in pronto because they have the fourth worst defensive record in the league, only better than Leicester, Burnley and QPR.”
They’re on their way out of the tunnel. Vincent Kompany barks “Come on!”, and here they are. Fancy City to make a fast start here. They’ll be buoyed by that result in west London.
Before kick-off, the usual plaintive cry for your e-missives. And indeed your tweets. @NickAmes82 or nick.ames.casual@theguardian.com, if you have a message for the world.
Newcastle will have a fair amount of pace up front today, with Perez, Gouffran and Cisse all starting. They might fancy their chances of turning Kompany and Mangala around, but they’ll probably be relying on a solid defensive base to let them play on the counter.
So, a win for City today would yank the gap back to five points and, with Chelsea not playing again in the league until 4 March, offer the chance to put some real pressure on the leaders. Victory here and something similar at Anfield next week would leave things looking very interesting.
Kevin Campbell – not that one I assume, judging by the timeliness of the delivery – fires in an early e-salvo:
“Some great 3pm games we got to watch here in Australia, you poor sods with the blackout. Now to defy the wife and pull an all nighter or just read your MBM in the morning?”
I’m sure some of us managed to see them, Kevin. As for your poser: a hit is a hit, I’d imagine, but if Mrs C is willing then we’d love to have you.
Once you’ve read that, here is Jamie Jackson on why Bony can be a fine addition for City.
Bony is a flamboyant character who turned up on his first day at the Dutch team in a “long coat and big car” but whose talent and professionalism quickly impressed his new team-mates.
“I thought he was a special one in everything,” Marcus Pedersen, a Norway forward who joined Vitesse the summer before Bony, remembers. “He trained hard, he’s very strong mentally. I came three months before him, and you saw when he came he was a big striker and everybody talked about [how] he scored a lot at Prague. And you saw after the first training session he looked a very strong striker who can also score goals.
“Its difficult to find big [men] to score a lot of goals. So that was a surprise for me, when I saw him, that he was so good a finisher.”
So now for your pre-match reading. This comes from Louise Taylor, who hears how John Carver hopes to win over Newcastle’s fans.
“If I was in the stands I’d be having a go about the same issues at times,” he said. “Our fans are very knowledgeable people. I genuinely mean that. I think we are fortunate in the north-east to have very knowledgeable fans here and at Sunderland. They love the game. So when people start having a go I can half understand that. Let’s not make them out to be bad fans because they’re not – but [criticism] takes away from the importance of supporting the team.”
Full time at Stamford Bridge! Chelsea 1-1 Burnley. Which makes it game on here...
Worth noting that Ben Mee, who has scored for Burnley at Chelsea, is a former City player. And he scored from a corner by Kieran Trippier – also ex-City. It’s still 1-1 there.
Keep an eye on the dying embers of the 3pms with Ian McCourt’s Clockwatch. But come back here afterwards.
And things could get a bit more interesting now, as Ben Mee has equalised for Burnley at Stamford Bridge against 10-man Chelsea!
So the relevant bits and pieces here: Newcastle have made one change to the side that drew at Palace, Vurnon Anita replacing Remy Cabella, who is injured. For City, Edin Dzeko and Yaya Toure, back from the Africa Cup of Nations along with Bony, come in for Milner and Fernando.
Newcastle’s subs: Woodman, R.Taylor, Abeid, Obertan, Ameobi, Armstrong, Rivière.
Newcastle team
#NUFC at @MCFC (4-3-3): Krul; Janmaat, Coloccini (c), Williamson, Haïdara; Sissoko, Anita, Colback; Pérez, Cissé, Gouffran.
— Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) February 21, 2015
City’s subs: Caballero, Demichelis, Clichy, Lampard, Fernando, Navas....and Bony
Manchester City team – no start for Bony
TEAM NEWS @MCFC: Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany (C), Mangala, Kolarov, Nasri, Fernandinho, Toure, Silva, Dzeko, Aguero #cityvnufc #mcfc
— Manchester City FC (@MCFC) February 21, 2015
Do you remember where you were last time Manchester City hosted Newcastle in the league? Perhaps you do, and perhaps that’s because the performance put in by Alan Pardew’s team that Monday night in August 2013 – in both sides’ first game of the season – absolutely stank. It finished 4-0 going on 12; it was as gutless an away performance you will see from a side whose backbone was, put generously, not able to bear a heavy load very consistently.
What’s changed? Not much, in some ways. Manuel Pellegrini is still City manager but, even with last season’s title to his name, does not appear on completely solid ground. Newcastle are their familiar, infuriating selves – they are capable of the kind of 2-0 win they inflicted at the Etihad in the Capital One Cup back in October, but their current 11th place is an accurate reflection of their gifts. They’re under new management, John Carver three games into his tenure, but it would take a brave person to predict that he will cajole any kind of consistency from them over the next 13 games.
That said, these two sides are in pretty similar form. Carver hasn’t lost since being appointed, a 3-0 win at Hull followed by 1-1 draws with Stoke and Crystal Palace. City won their last game by a three-goal margin, 4-1 at Stoke, and prior to that enjoyed two 1-1s of their own against Chelsea and – in their last home game – Hull.
City really need to win this. They’ll be 10 points behind Chelsea assuming Mourinho and co hold on against Burnley, albeit with today acting as their game in hand, and Arsenal’s imminent win at Palace truncates things below them a little. Taking a longer view than the last three games, they’ve not really been on title-winning form at all: that home draw with the Tigers was preceded, in their previous Etihad league game, by defeat to the Gunners and Middlesbrough were victorious here in the FA Cup, too. In fact they’ve only won two of their last six at home in all competitions. Something extra is required.
Could that be Wilfried Bony? He is available to City today at long last, and looks ripe for a debut. They have certainly looked light up top recently. They’ll definitely have to do without the injured James Milner today, which removes a reliable seven-out-of-ten player from the equation.
So who’s your money on? Newcastle might fancy their chances of another upset, but I’ll leave you with this: City have won their last 10 league meetings (including a 2-0 away win in August), and haven’t conceded a goal to the Magpies in their last four. Away win all over it, surely?
Kick-off is at 5.30pm. Nick will be here with team news and build-up from 4.30pm.
