This was a match that looked almost Italian like in nature, with the home squad dominating stretches and the road side doing work on the counter. West Brom did quite a bit of damage on the counter to Newcastle.
A win over the Baggies could have put Newcastle into the top 5 going into Christmas. This was despite the fact that they were winless in their last 5, which I'm sure Alan Pardew still blames on Chelsea.
The match started somewhat tentatively, with neither side really being all that adventurous in creating chances. Still, Newcastle looked the more dangerous side and started to get their feet under them.
Even though West Brom was clearly on the back foot, they drew first blood in this one. In the 20th minute, Chris Brunt triggered a Baggies' counter with a long but deadly accurate through ball that freed up Peter Odemwingie. The striker then scooted around a defender and slotted it home to make it 0-1 to West Brom.
However Newcastle was not deterred and responded pretty well. After a nervous couple of minutes, they got back on the ball and resumed the attack. This finally paid off for them in the 34th minute, off the foot of Demba Ba. Ba took a free kick from just outside the penalty arc and slammed it in to the corner of the net to equalize 1-1.
You might have been forgiven at that point if you thought the half was out of goals, but you would have been wrong. Newcastle has had some issues defending set pieces this season, and it bit them in the 44th minute. Brunt sent in a gorgeous free kick that found it's way from the head of Gareth McAuley into the back of the net to make it 1-2 Baggies at the half.
Newcastle opened the 2nd half with a flurry of pressure, but couldn't find an equalizer. This led to a golden chance for West Brom to ice the match. In the 53rd minute Shane Long roared up the pitch on the counter, beat the 'keeper, but put his open net shot off the bottom of the crossbar. It really was unbelievable.
It looked like that miss would come back to haunt West Brom as well. Demba Ba was by far the most dangerous Newcastle player, and in fact he's scored over half of the Premier League goals for them so far. In the 81st minute he let a shot loose from just inside the area which zoomed past the West Brom 'keeper and equalized the match at 2-2.
However in the end West Brom were not to be denied the three points. Just 4 minutes after the Ba equalizer, they came up with a Glorious winner. Chris Brunt sent a cross in from the right to Peter Odemwingie, Odemwingie headed the ball back to an onrushing Paul Scharner, and the midfielder finished off the goal to make it 2-3 at full time.
All I can say for the Newcastle supporters is: ouch. However it was a tremendous match and both teams worked their guts out.
No comments:
Post a Comment