Louise Taylor was at St James’ Park tonight, and her verdict has landed. Get clicking, people. Thanks for reading this MBM. Nighty night!
Eddie Howe speaks to Amazon. “We had a mountain to climb so early in the game. We were in a good frame of mind. But full credit to how the players responded. We defended well, I’m just sad we couldn’t get over the line. Our centre halves were magnificent, our midfield coped, and our centre forwards contributed to the effort. That’s a massive thing to take forward. If we deliver that mentality, we will win games. I can’t praise the players enough, they’ve had some hard knocks.”
Dean Smith talks to Amazon. “It’s the most disappointed I’ve been in the three games I’ve had. I didn’t want the player sent off, I wanted Teemu to go through and score. It was a questionable penalty, though we were too slow and a draw was the right result. Our goal was the first time we switched it from side to side; we didn’t do that enough. Our players are embracing the fact they’re Premier League players, they just needed a little bit of belief, and they’re unbeaten in four now.”
Newcastle’s captain for the evening, Callum Wilson, talks to Amazon. “It was difficult, frustrating. We knew how big the game was, and 11 against 11 we’d win that. But we’re not going to dig out Ciaran, we’re all together, we’re a team. We limited them to limited chances. We kept the door shut until the end, it was a great shot by the guy, but you can’t feel sorry for yourself. We stayed compact, everyone was disciplined, and everyone ran themselves into the ground.”
Newcastle remain the only team in the top four divisions in England without a win. Here’s the bottom of the Premier League table as it stands, with Leeds currently drawing 0-0 with Crystal Palace at Elland Road.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | Watford | 13 | -6 | 13 |
| 17 | Leeds | 14 | -8 | 13 |
| 18 | Norwich | 14 | -20 | 10 |
| 19 | Burnley | 12 | -6 | 9 |
| 20 | Newcastle | 14 | -14 | 7 |
FULL TIME: Newcastle United 1-1 Norwich City
It’s all over. A better result for Norwich than Newcastle, though the hosts would have surely taken a point after going down to ten men after just nine minutes ... and when Lees-Melou was one on one with Dubravka in injury time, come to think about it.
90 min +6: Newcastle can’t clear Gilmour’s free kick. The ball drops to Rupp, who hits a screamer goalwards ... but the box is crowded and the shot pinballs back to Lees-Melou, whose attempted curler is weak and easily dealt with.
90 min +5: Newcastle are hanging on here. Rupp probes down the right and is clumsily upended by Hayden. A chance for Gilmour to loop the free kick into the mixer.
90 min +4: Nothing comes from the resulting corner. What a chance that was for Norwich to claim all three points.
90 min +3: Lees-Melou robs Schar down the Norwich left. He enters the area, reaches the edge of the six-yard box, opens his body, and looks to sidefoot across Dubravka and into the bottom right. The keeper sticks out a leg to deflect over the bar. What a save! Especially as Pukki was free in the middle, screaming to be set up for the tap-in.
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90 min +2: Pukki is given too much space to turn and size up a shot from 20 yards. Fernandez reacts and blocks, just in time. Norwich come again, but Giannoulis sails a dismal forward pass into the hands of Dubravka.
90 min: Joelinton has a crack from distance. The ball sails harmlessly into the Gallowgate. There will be six extra minutes.
88 min: Idah is found alone in the Newcastle box by Hanley’s raking pass. He takes a touch before larruping a fierce shot over the bar. The flag goes up for offside anyway, but Toon hearts were in mouths there for a second.
87 min: Shelvey is good to go again, and so play restarts. The tension is palpable. Nobody wants to concede a sickener.
86 min: Shelvey needs a bit of attention. A pause in play.
85 min: The corner is a waste of time, the whistle peeping for a garden-variety free kick to Newcastle in the middle of a crowded box.
84 min: Aarons crosses from the right. Schar, under pressure from the lurking Idah, is forced to head behind for a corner.
83 min: It’s all Norwich now, in terms of possession at least. They’re not doing a lot in the final third, the electric rush of the equaliser having quickly died down.
81 min: Suddenly there’s a spring in Norwich’s step. McLean pearls a long pass down the inside right. Pukki tries another volley, but this one is sliced way wide.
GOAL! Newcastle United 1-1 Norwich City (Pukki 79)
Gilmour crosses from the right. Dubravka comes out to punch clear. The ball drops to Giannoulis, just inside the box on the left. He cushions a gentle pass back inside for Pukki, who tells everyone to get out of his way, and lashes an unstoppable left-foot volley into the top left from 12 yards. What a finish!
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77 min: Almiron comes on for Saint-Maximin, as Newcastle look to lock down these precious three points.
76 min: Giannoulis curls in from the left. Idah tries to steer home from six yards, but Fernandez gets in ahead of him. The ball clanks off the defender’s arm and out for a corner ... but Newcastle get the free kick instead, the flag going up for offside.
74 min: Wilson, in a tight spot near the right-hand corner flag, tries to win a corner off Giannoulis. The ball misses the Norwich player and sails along the byline towards Hayden, who tries to steer a shot goalwards from the tightest of angles at the near post. The ball flashes across the face of goal and away from danger. Krul wasn’t too sure of himself there, and Norwich get away with it.
73 min: Willock is replaced by the more defensively minded Hayden, while Norwich swap Williams for Giannoulis.
72 min: Idah bustles his way across the front of the Newcastle box, left to right. His shot balloons off Shelvey’s toe and nearly loops into the top right. Just over ... but the referee hasn’t spotted the deflection and he’s not even getting the corner.
71 min: A little better from Norwich as Aarons and Gilmour combine down the right, opening up a little space. But the final ball by Gilmour is no good.
69 min: Norwich have achieved the square root of nothing since going behind. One goal seems beyond them right now. Two would be way too much to ask for, and they nearly ship another as Saint-Maximin goes on an exploratory run down the right wing and bangs a rising shot towards the top right. Off target, but not a million miles away.
67 min: Sargent is replaced by Idah. A midfielder for a striker.
66 min: Williams glides in from the left and rolls a ball infield to tee up Rupp. The referee gets in the way of Rupp’s run, blocking him off, much to the anger of Williams and the entertainment of the home crowd. That would have been a fine shooting chance otherwise.
65 min: Williams tries to jink past Joelinton down the left, but can’t get around his man and eventually drags him down in frustration. Again, the pressure on Newcastle is both brief and ultimately released by an unforced error.
63 min: Norwich fling a few men forward in the hope of instant salvation. But it’s all a bit ponderous and eventually the ball sails out for a goal kick. Norwich have been very poor in attack against ten men.
GOAL! Newcastle United 1-0 Norwich City (Wilson 61 pen)
Wilson slots ... but only just! He batters a low shot towards the bottom right. It’s not in the corner. Krul dives the right way and gets a strong hand to the penalty. The ball pings upwards, off the underside of the bar, and down into the net. St James’ Park explodes in joy!
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Penalty for Newcastle!
59 min: Yep! Gilmour is found guilty and Wilson will have a chance to blast ten-man Toon ahead from the spot!
58 min: VAR is giving this a good long look. The referee is invited to take a look for himself on the pitchside monitor. A guilty look spreads across Gilmour’s face.
57 min: Fernandez meets the corner and heads goalwards. The ball twangs off Gilmour’s upraised arm. There’s not a great distance between the players, but it still might be enough for this to be given. Newcastle surround the referee. VAR gets involved.
56 min: Saint-Maximin busies himself down the right and earns a corner. A rare chance for Newcastle to cause Norwich some trouble.
54 min: Norwich break immediately, with Newcastle howling for their spot kick. Sargent drives down the left and should send Pukki clear down the middle, but delays and delays, and eventually blazes a strange cross into his team-mate’s chest at uncontrollable speed. Dubravka claims.
53 min: It is now bucketing it down in Newcastle. Williams slips, allowing Joelinton to run into the box down the right. He enters the area and leaps over the extended leg of Rupp. There’s some contact, but Rupp gets a little of the ball too, so neither referee nor VAR are interested.
51 min: Williams is again in a promising amount of space on the left. Hanley, under no pressure whatsoever, batters a hopeless pass miles over his head and into the crowd. Williams boils over, giving his team-mate a much-deserved long-distance bollocking.
49 min: Gilmour dribbles in from the right. He’s got Williams free in acres on the left, but doesn’t spot him. “I wonder what Amazon’s return policy is for football teams?” asks James Maslen.
47 min: Norwich have obviously been told to step it up a bit, and have come flying out of the blocks, their passing immediately crisper, their runs more urgent.
Newcastle get the second half underway. Norwich have made a change, swapping Tzolis for Lees-Melou.
Half-time entertainment ... seeing we were talking about cutting-edge modernist design ...
HALF TIME: Newcastle United 0-0 Norwich City
Who will be the happier less unhappy of the two teams? It’s difficult to say.
45 min +1: Tzolis finally warms Dubravka’s hands, taking up possession just inside the Newcastle box and creaming a shot towards the bottom left. Easy enough for the keeper, but work is work.
45 min: A long pass down the right nearly releases Saint-Maximin. Gibson, fearing a footrace against the speedy Saint-Maximin, gets his body in the road and draws a clumsy barge. That’s some good old-school defending. There will be two added minutes.
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43 min: McLean cuts in from the right and tries a shot from 25 yards. Miles wide left and nearly as high. Like Krul up the other end, Dubravka hasn’t had anything to do either.
42 min: All a bit scrappy now, which will suit Newcastle given their depleted status.
40 min: Williams belts a long pass down the middle. Pukki gives chase. Dubravka comes out of his box to blooter clear. The flag then goes up for offside, though had Pukki reached the ball first and converted, VAR might have had something to say about that flag.
38 min: Tzolis takes a whack from distance. His shot is deflected out for a corner on the right. The corner’s hit long. Tzolis picks up possession again, then dinks an aimless cross out for a goal kick.
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36 min: Manquillo clatters into Williams, who had been probing down the left only to turn tail. A needless challenge that gifts a free kick. Nothing comes of the set piece, but it’s another act of ill-disciplined daftness by a Newcastle defender.
35 min: Krul still hasn’t had anything to do, but he should have been worked here, as Willock works his way down the left and pulls back for Wilson, who leans back and hoicks over from 12 yards. That’s got the crowd going again, at least.
34 min: Shelvey crosses from a deep position on the right. Easy for Krul, who has had nothing to do so far.
32 min: Aarons curls a cross in from the right. Tzolis stoops to head but doesn’t connect. The ball flicks off Manquillo’s hand. There’s a VAR check, but the officials show mercy. Manquillo was right behind Tzolis, so proximity must have been the deciding factor, because his arm was in an unnatural position.
31 min: A long ball down the middle nearly opens up Newcastle. Sargent turns just inside the box and aims for the bottom left. His shot is blocked. Norwich are getting closer. Meanwhile there’s more from Peter Oh: “The banter about Norwich City’s colours reminds me of the time I was watching a Canaries match on the telly and an avid Brazil fan dismissed the yellow kit as a ripoff of the five-time World Cup winners’ strip. When I helpfully pointed out that Norwich have been wearing these colours since about 1908 and Brazil didn’t start wearing yellow until 1954 or thereabouts, I was dismissed as spreading misinformation. I can’t make everyone happy, I suppose.”
29 min: Tzolis works his way down the left, reaches the byline, and fizzes an inviting ball through the six-yard box. Sargent plans to trundle it home from close range at the far post, but Lewis makes a crucial block and forces the ball out for a corner, from which nothing comes.
27 min: Norwich are playing a patient game. They stroke it around the back awhile, adding to Newcastle’s frustration. “On the subject of Amazon, it strikes me as particularly apt they’re covering this game, given both sides have struggled with attacks this season. Attacks... a tax... geddit?” Andrew Champan, ladies and gentlemen. He’s here all week, try the local amber refreshment.
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25 min: Schar is good to continue for now. Play restarts, and Willock drives his way down the left wing, winning a throw deep in Norwich territory. Nothing much comes of it. The crowd is markedly more quiet now, as you’d imagine in the wake of Clark’s idiocy. “I imagine part of poor Howe’s distress is contemplating that brutal Championship schedule next year,” suggests Mary Waltz.
23 min: Schar, having recently gone on an ambitious dribble only to be brilliantly tackled by Gilmour, goes down, having tweaked something on his upfield adventures. On comes the trainer.
22 min: Norwich probe down both flanks, pushing the ten men back, though not at any pace to trouble the hosts. McLean eventually sends a long pass, meant for Sargent, straight out for a goal kick.
20 min: Newcastle may as well go for it, though. Saint-Maximin sashays in from the left and rolls a pass across the face of the Norwich box. Joelinton races onto it and hits a first-time screamer towards the top right. Like Shelvey’s effort before, it’s high and wide but not so wild that it fails to excite the punters.
18 min: Aarons decides to take on Shelvey in a footrace down the right. He knocks the ball into acres of space and hares after it. He’s going to win, too, but Shelvey holds him off, refusing to let him pass and tugs him down. Somehow, Newcastle get the decision instead of Norwich. It could easily have been a booking for Shelvey.
17 min: A Norwich win is a 40-percent probability now.
15 min: On the touchline, Eddie Howe is incandescent with rage, as he has been since Clark’s absurd antics. He’s on a rolling boil, screaming at his players as he desperately reorganises his defence.
13 min: Newcastle’s win probability, worked out by the boffins at Opta, is now just 27 percent. Oh Ciaran.
11 min: Before the corner is taken, Fraser is sacrificed for Fernandez. Gilmour then sends the set piece down the throat of Dubravka. What an absurd start to the Eddie Howe era at St James’!
10 min: Gilmour takes the resulting free kick, whipping towards the top left. Dubravka tips around the post. Fine save.
RED CARD: Clark (Newcastle)
9 min: Sheer idiocy from Ciaran Clark. He tries to hook a long ball back upfield, but only slaps it into the chest of Pukki, who tears clear down the inside-left channel. Clark tugs his man back, and it’s the most obvious red card. Off he goes. What a costly rush of blood.
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8 min: Manquillo earns the first corner of the match, out on the right. Fraser loops it into the mixer. It pinballs around for a second or two, before finally being dispatched upfield by Sargent. “Peter Oh’s Amazon quip is a Prime example of what makes him such a valued MBM contributor,” writes John Peeler. He is lovely, isn’t he.
7 min: Norwich settle the crowd down with a little bit of sterile possession. “I am a traditionalist,” begins Mary Waltz, “but the new Norwich crest is much better. But if they ever try to change colours I will call for Derby-level penalties.” It is lovely, isn’t it.
5 min: Shelvey passes long again, down the middle this time. He nearly releases Wilson, who checks back and lays off for Fraser. His shot is blocked. Newcastle recycle possession and this time Shelvey has a crack, looking to send a spectacular one into the top right. It’s high and wide, yet close enough to make the crowd gasp in excitement.
4 min: Shelvey creams a long pass down the right in the hope of releasing Fraser. That doesn’t quite come off either, Williams again dealing with the situation, but this is a positive start by the home team, desperate for that elusive first victory of the Premier League season.
3 min: Saint-Maximin and Lewis combine well down the left, the latter swinging a cross long in the hope of finding Wilson. Nope. Williams clears the danger.
2 min: There’s bedlam a-plenty in St James’ Park. A rare old atmosphere as Eddie Howe takes to the home dugout for the first time. What a noise! “I suppose it’s fitting that Howe is speaking to Amazon, because it’s time for him to deliver,” quips Peter Oh, never one to miss an open goal.
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The glorious theme to Local Hero belts out of the PA, then the whistle goes. Norwich kick off, but only after everyone takes the knee. The gesture is met with applause. There’s no room for racism.
The teams are out! Newcastle wear those famous black and white stripes, while Norwich sport their trademark canary yellow. Speaking of trademarks, Norwich’s badge, unchanged since 1972, is being slowly phased out. It’ll still be on the shirt for the rest of the season, but the handsome new birdie slated to replace it is already making itself heard, cropping up tonight on some of the training kit and Dean Smith’s puffa. Yes logo! We’ll be off in a minute.
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Dean Smith’s turn. “It’s a big game. All we can control is our performance levels and not get carried away. It’s still 90 minutes, no bigger than Wolves on Saturday, so we’re looking forward to it. We’ve seen already by winning two of the last three games how quickly we can build confidence in the group. It’s as big for us as it is for them. Psychologically it’d be nice to get the result but we know how hard it will be against a partisan crowd.”
Eddie Howe speaks to Amazon Prime. “It’s hugely important that we get the crowd involved, that’s down to us. It’s a massive game, we’re well aware of it, but we’ve tried to get the players to focus on the performance. Hopefully we’ll get a bit of luck if we need it. You need to win games to stay in this league, sooner rather than later, and our next opportunity is tonight.”
These two clubs usually spark each other into action. The last six games between the pair have generated 28 goals, hat-tricks for Teemu Pukki and Dwight Gayle, and a four-goal haul for the long-departed Georginio Wijnaldum. The last meeting, here at St James’ Park back in February 2020, ended 0-0, which rather spoils the effect, but you get the general gist, and seeing the current teams have shipped 56 goals between them already this season, we probably shouldn’t get too hung up on that. Rollercoaster thriller, please!
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Newcastle make three changes to the side named for the 2-0 defeat at Arsenal. Ciaran Clark, Jamal Lewis and Javier Manquillo replace Jamaal Lascelles and Matt Ritchie, both of whom are suspended, and the benched Emil Krafth.
Norwich make two changes to the team that drew 0-0 with Wolves at Carrow Road. Lukas Rupp and Christos Tzolis replace Mathias Normann and Milot Rashica, who both miss out altogether.
The teams
Newcastle United: Dubravka, Manquillo, Schar, Clark, Lewis, Fraser, Shelvey, Willock, Saint-Maximin, Wilson, Joelinton.
Subs: Hayden, Hendrick, Krafth, Fernandez, Murphy, Almiron, Darlow, Gayle, Longstaff.
Norwich City: Krul, Aarons, Hanley, Gibson, Williams, Tzolis, Sargent, Gilmour, McLean, Rupp, Pukki.
Subs: Dowell, Placheta, Kabak, Sorensen, Lees-Melou, Gunn, Giannoulis, Idah, Omobamidele.
Referee: Andrew Madley (West Yorkshire).
Preamble
It’s fair to say this ...
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | Watford | 13 | -6 | 13 |
| 17 | Leeds | 13 | -8 | 12 |
| 18 | Burnley | 12 | -6 | 9 |
| 19 | Norwich | 13 | -20 | 9 |
| 20 | Newcastle | 13 | -14 | 6 |
... is a big one. Kick off is at 7.30pm GMT. It’s on!
