That’s it for today’s blog. I’ll leave you with a freshly baked match report from St James’ Park. Goodnight!
Full time: Newcastle 0-3 Leicester
Peep peep! Leicester consolidate second place with an emphatic victory at St James’ Park. The match was over in the 46th minute when Newcastle, already 2-0 down, suffered their fourth injury of the match. Newcastle’s grotesque misfortune is not Leicester’s problem, though, and they had already demonstrated their superiority before Newcastle went down to 10 men. Ayoze Perez scored against his old club, with James Maddison and Hamza Choudhury both getting on the scoresheet with brilliant long-range shots.
90 min There will be three minutes of added time.
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GOAL! Newcastle 0-3 Leicester (Choudhury 87)
Hamza Choudhury, whose every touch has been booed, gets his first goal in senior football with a brilliant finish. Ndidi played the ball square to him, 22 yards from goal, and he nonchalantly sidefooted an immaculate rising shot that beat Dubravka and flew in off the underside of the bar.
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86 min “Sounds like a bad day to have Kane and Vardy up front in Fantasy Football...” banters Matt Dony.
84 min Another change for Leicester. Wes Morgan on, Jonny Evans off.
81 min Nothing is happening. Both teams are waiting for the final whistle.
77 min Hamza Choudhury, a popular man in these parts, replaces the brilliant James Maddison.
76 min Leicester have had almost 80 per cent of the possession in this half. That’s no great surprise, given their superiority and numerical advantage.
74 min “In the other game, Kane just limped off with a hamstring,” says Joe Pearson. Spurs are still losing 1-0 to Southampton.
There’s more soccer to come
69 min Almiron tries a dummy on his own byline, gets himself in a tangle and knocks the ball behind for a corner. Happily for his self-esteem levels, nothing comes of it.
68 min Gray miskicks eight yards from goal after a precise cutback from Tielemans. I think Perez got in his way.
67 min Newcastle would certainly take a 2-0 defeat. It’s easy to be critical but they have had grotesque luck with injuries in the last few weeks.
66 min Perez is flagged offside after being put through on goal by Ricardo. He tries a cocky chip that drifts just wide of the far post - but replays show he was probably onside, so had he scored it would have counted.
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63 min Demarai Gray replaces Kelechi Iheanacho for Leicester.
62 min Most teams in Leicester’s position would declare at 2-0. But they are a ruthless bunch, as Southampton found out earlier in the season, and they look hungry for more.
60 min Dubravka makes a vital double save from Iheanacho and Perez at the end of a superb Leicester counter-attack.
59 min Tielemans is booked for a foul on Fernandez. Moments later, Joelinton mishits a shot from the edge of the area after a cutback from Muto. That was a decent opportunity, but he looks so low on confidence.
55 min Another vicious left-footed drive from Maddison, this time from 30 yards, is well held by the leaping Dubravka.
53 min Maddison cracks a free-kick wide from the edge of the box.
53 min “Happy New Year, Rob, and here’s to Newcastle 0-5 Leicester,” says Charles Antaki. “Not because I have any especial fondness for the one or animus against the other, but because Arsenal sit below Newcastle United for the first time in (I could look it up, but it’s probably 100 years), and this might help. Arsenal fans are now used to looking for any small comfort - petty, mean-minded and self-centred as it might be. Also a portent of what 2020 will bring in society more generally, I fear.”
51 min Schar is leaving the field. Newcastle are down to 10 men, having suffered four injuries in the first 46 minutes. Happy new year.
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49 min Schar is back on the field, but he can barely run.
48 min Schar is having his hamstring strapped on the sideline, with a view to carrying on, but if it’s a hamstring injury he surely won’t last long.
47 min Now it looks like Fabian Schar has pulled a hamstring! This is astonishing. Newcastle could be down to 10 men for the rest of the game.
46 min Newcastle begin the second half. They’ve made a third enforced change at half-time, with Sean Longstaff on for the injured Jonjo Shelvey.
Half-time reading
Half time: Newcastle 0-2 Leicester
Peep peep! Leicester have been too good for injury-hit Newcastle, although both goals came from sad errors by Florian Lejeune. Ayoze Perez’s opener was good; James Maddison’s second was spectacular.
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45+3 min Another injury for Newcastle: Emil Krafth is on for Javier Manquillo.
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45+1 min Leicester have been rampant since they scored the first goal, and Newcastle could do with a half-time break.
45 min Another injury for Newcastle: DeAndre Yedlin replaces Jetro Willems.
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43 min Dubravka makes a fine reaction save from Iheanacho! Perez was put clear on the right and crossed first time towards Iheanacho at the far post. He mishit his shot, with the ball zipping awkwardly off the pitch, but it took a deflection off the sliding Fernandez and was going in before it was pawed away by Dubravka.
42 min This could get ugly for Newcastle. It’s not particularly pretty as it is.
41 min A half-chance for Almiron, who heads over the bar from Shelvey’s imaginative, outside-of-the-foot cross.
Poor Florian Lejeune was at fault again. His sloppy clearance was intercepted by Ricardo, and then Perez played the loose ball back towards Maddison. He zipped infield from the right, onto his left foot, and rifled a blistering 20-yard drive into the top corner.
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GOAL! Newcastle 0-2 Leicester (Maddison 39)
What a goal from James Maddison!
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That’s another hideous defensive error from Newcastle. Lejeune’s pass across the edge of his own penalty area was too short and intercepted by Perez. He moved into the area, chopped back inside Schar and screwed a right-footed shot that took a slight deflection and nestled in the far corner.
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GOAL! Newcastle 0-1 Leicester (Perez 36)
Ayoze Perez scores against his old club!
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33 min Another booming corner from Maddison is headed over by Ndidi, under pressure on the six-yard line. He couldn’t quite get over the ball.
33 min “Stress free, huh?” says JR in Illinois. “Stress free my behind. West Brom are facing Leeds in fewer than two hours in a battle for the top of the Championship and I’m having kittens over here. My Baggies need to snap out of their recent form or they’re in for a schooling. And then right after that there’s the darts final which is nerve-racking even if you don’t have a rooting interest. I tell you it’s enough to have me running to the medicine cabinet to double up on my blood pressure medication.”
31 min Ah, the first replay suggests Joelinton was onside when he missed that chance. Meanwhile Fernandez is booked for pulling back Maddison, who had rolled him classily on the left wing.
30 min Maddison’s booming corner is punched away by Dubravka. We still haven’t seen a replay of that Joelinton chance, not that it really matters.
27 min Leicester appeal unsuccessfully for a penalty when Maddison falls over after a challenge from Willems. There was nothing in that.
25 min: Joelinton misses a great chance! He ran clear onto Shelvey’s long pass, and though he looked a mile offside he was allowed to continue. His stabbed shot was blocked superbly by Schmeichel, with the ball looping up in the air, but Joelinton could only head it back across goal rather than into the net. We haven’t seen a replay but I’d be surprised if he was onside.
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23 min One consolation for Newcastle is that, for all Leicester’s dominance, Dubravka has only had a couple of difficult saves to make.
20 min “Two likeable teams, and in Almiron and Maddison, two of my favourite players in the league (plus the added bonus of Shelvey, who will always be a hero after his magnificent verbal volley at Fergie),” says Matt Dony. “Purely in terms of league position, I guess I want Newcastle to win, but I’m happy to see either side do well. A nice stress-free watch on a quiet day.”
Nice. Likeable. Stress-free. Quiet. It’s how the 2020s roll.
19 min Schar’s long-range shot is comfortably held by Schmeichel.
18 min This is painfully one-sided at the moment. Newcastle can’t get a foothold in the game.
15 min Tielemans drills a sweet left-footed drive from 20 yards that is pushed away by Dubravka, and Fernandez does brilliantly to reach the loose ball a split-second before Perez. Had he not been in Big Ron’s Wide Awake Club, Perez would have had a tap-in.
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13 min Leicester are dominating possession, as expected, although they look most dangerous when they have the opportunity to counter-attack.
11 min Perez neatly releases Chilwell, whose driven cross/shot is palmed away by the flying Dubravka. Iheanacho was waiting behind him in front of an open goal.
9 min “With the title race settled (and we both know it is) I’ve been thinking about Manager of the Year,” says Hubert O’Hearn. “I suspect if Liverpool cruise it to winning by 10+ points that will go to Jurgen Klopp, but it’s much more fun to gauge the award on who has done the most with the least, or under the most adversity. I’ll tell you who would get my vote, even though he won’t win it in a million years, Graham Potter at Brighton. Having just watched the Seagulls hold Frank Lampard’s Chelsea (another contender) to a draw through shrewd substitutions and tactics I’m not so sure that there’s a better manager in the league, showponies included. You?”
Well, Klopp would be 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but aside from him I’d go for Chris Wilder. I do like Potter a lot, though.
6 min Leicester have started very impressively, their swagger apparently not affected by those defeats against Manchester City and Liverpool.
3 min Maddison plays a lovely pass inside the full-back for Ricardo, who wins a corner. Leicester are playing a back three, not the usual 4-1-4-1. One of those three centre-halves, Jonny Evans, almost scores from the corner. Maddison curled it towards the near post, where Evans’ firm header was palmed up in the air by Dubravka. It came back to Evans, who tried to loop a follow-up header into the far corner. Dubravka reached over a couple of players to flap the ball down, and one of the Newcastle defenders belted it clear.
1 min Peep peep! Leicester get the match under way, kicking from left to right.
After a comforting blast of Local Hero at St James’ Park, the players assume their positions. It’s time for some more association football.
“Has there ever been a season when so few teams are able to hold form for more than a couple of weeks? (There is an exception, I know),” says Gary Naylor. “What’s causing it? Has it always been like this? Is it all VAR’s fault - as everything else seems to be? All I know is that I don’t know.”
My feeling is that it was like this in the first half of almost every season until inequality kicked in in the mid-2000s. Have a look, for example, at the table in December 2001. The first half of that season was gloriously unpredictable.
The lunchtime games have finished
- Brighton 1-1 Chelsea
- Burnley 1-2 Aston Villa
That’s a particularly valuable win for Villa, who have moved out of the relegation places.
Team news
There’s no Jamie Vardy in the Leicester squad, which is a terrible blow for those who hate Fantasy Football League banter. He has a tight calf.
Newcastle (3-4-1-2) Dubravka; Schar, Fernandez, Lejeune; Manquillo, Hayden, Shelvey, Willems; Almiron; Joelinton, Muto.
Substitutes: Darlow, Krafth, Yedlin, Atsu, S Longstaff, Carroll, Gayle.
Leicester (3-3-2-2) Schmeichel; Soyuncu, Evans, Fuchs; Ricardo, Ndidi, Chilwell; Tielemans, Maddison; Iheanacho, Perez.
Substitutes: Ward, Justin, Morgan, Gray, Albrighton, Barnes, Choudhury.
Referee Martin Atkinson
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of Newcastle v Leicester from St James’ Park. Newcastle have come a long way since the return fixture in September, when they were humiliated 5-0. Steve Bruce, the subject of disgraceful ridicule around that time, turned things round impressively, and his side found a nice comfortable spot in mid-table.
Things are slightly less cosy after three defeats in four, and with a grim injury list that is getting longer rather than shorter. Newcastle are 11th, six points clear of the relegation places, but they have some tricky fixtures coming up and will want to avoid going on the kind of run that can turn mid-table security into a desperate fight for survival. Still, when they skulked away from the King Power Stadium in September, they would have taken this position.
Kick off is at 3pm.
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