If this is how Newcastle intend to fight for survival, their days in the Premier League are numbered. They have six matches left to do far better than this but do not seem to have any real clue how. The only positive they could take here, apart from a fine goal by Andros Townsend after Shane Long, Graziano Pellè and Victor Wanyama had scored for Southampton, is that four of their remaining games are at home.
On the road they are about as useful as a lazy bunch of truckers, this result meaning their haul from 17 away matches this season stays at seven points. Rafael Benítez had called on his team to play with the boldness that they showed in the second half of last week’s defeat at Carrow Road – as opposed to the fretfulness of the first half – and he compiled his lineup accordingly, with Aleksandar Mitrovic and Ayoze Pérez deployed up front from the start.
How Benítez would like to have been able to change Newcastle’s defence, too, but he felt obliged to stick with a ramshackle back four, with Vurnon Anita remaining at left-back because Paul Dummett was only fit enough for the bench following injury. Southampton read the visitors’ away record, and perhaps their teamsheet, as an invitation to attack and did so with glee.
Karl Darlow saved a close-range header from Pellè in the second minute but two minutes later the goalkeeper was beaten by Long after being left to fend for himself again, the defence’s attempt to disrupt a one-two between Long and Pellè in the buildup having consisted of little more than a bemused expression on Steven Taylor’s face.
Newcastle briefly raised their chins, and José Fonte had to make a strong block to turn away a shot by Pérez in the sixth minute. The visitors did not shoot again until the second half.
Jonjo Shelvey, notionally his team’s playmaker, put Taylor in trouble with a slack pass in the 12th minute, and Taylor, in turn, underhit a backpass to Darlow. The goalkeeper, at least, was sharp and hurtled out of his box to clear just before Long pounced again.
Dusan Tadic narrowly missed the far post with a curling free-kick in the 21st minute, by which time Benítez looked exhausted from all his hollering and gesticulating. The Spaniard has gained one point from four matches in charge and for a manager who craves control, the disjointedness of his team, and an attitude from some players that looked like fecklessness, must seem a cruel kind of torment. Travelling supporters resorted to gallows humour before even half an hour had elapsed, chanting “we’re going down” with mock triumphalism. The most powerful barrier between Southampton and more goals, at this stage, was a creeping tendency to showboat. Long and Tadic both fired off shots from over 30 yards while well-placed team-mates awaited through-balls.
But in the 38th minute the hosts got the goal they obviously sensed would come, and again the feebleness of Newcastle’s resistance was striking. Bad luck compounded the visitors’ disjointedness, as Daryl Janmaat slipped while trying to intercept a pass by Wanyama. The Dutchman hurt his groin in the fall and had to be replaced, but only after Tadic had helped the ball on to Long, whose gauche first touch turned into a pass to Pellè, who drove the ball into the bottom corner of the net.
Taylor’s performance demanded a half-time substitution, though Benítez, showing exemplary defensive qualities, said later he made the change because Taylor was feeling “stiff”. The manager also said he told his players at half-time their display had been unacceptably limp.
Newcastle perked up in the second period and it was 10 whole minutes before they fell further behind. Sadio Mané delivered a ball into the box and after one shot was blocked, the rebound came to Wanyama, who swept it into the net to make it 3-0.
Benítez must bear some of the blame for his team’s ineffectiveness. These players, for now at least, are patently incapable of intricacy so there seemed little point in them trying to piece together cunning moves, yet that is what they persisted in doing, rather than the more direct approach that worked in the second half at Carrow Road. Deprived of service, Mitrovic spent watched most of the match in useless dismay.
In the 65th minute, Townsend scored with a fine solo goal, skedaddling in-field from the right before walloping the ball into the top corner from 20 yards. Too little, too late: a sentiment Benítez might recognise as he contemplates what to do in the time given to him at Newcastle.
