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Post
Match Comments:
Newcastle manager Chris Hughton said:
"I have my moments, the same as
anyone, where we have been this season so far we have had to try to keep
a calmness and composure to keep everything together. Expectations are
high and there’s a lot to live up to. It was just how I felt at the
time. It’s moments like this, when you go in the changing room at the
final whistle, what we are in the game for.
It was an ugly
win. Sheffield play a style which makes it difficult - you have to be
strong and resilient. For the majority of the game I thought we handled
everything they threw at us.
We’ve just got to make
sure we keep up the performances and stay where we are.
We weren't fortunate. Steve Harper made
a couple of absolutely fabulous saves and that's the quality of the
keeper he is. Over the 90 minutes we deserved what we got. He's doing
the business. There are different aspects to Steve Harper. He's a
Newcastle lad and has been here for a long time, he's a very calming
influence, a mature lad and a mature player and that has been invaluable
for us.
It was vitally
important we got something from the game and my first impressions are
that he (Nolan) won the ball."
Steve
Harper added:
"I think we deserved it for a collective team effort, and I have to
mention Andy Carroll was outstanding at both ends of the pitch. He got
some fantastic defensive headers in, and did a big job for us.
At 1-0 down at home, they're going to launch bodies into the box. They
got a couple of overloads, and I was happy to keep a couple of them out.
I've been working on a few reaction things with Paul Barron, and I was
happy with that tonight.
I thought the one I saved with my legs was going to be my last one, but
then the lad's headed it, and some days, they go in, and I was just
happy to keep it out.
It was a great result. We did what we were doing earlier in the season
at Cardiff and Ipswich. We didn't do it at Forest and Scunthorpe because
we gave sloppy goals away. We know that if we keep clean sheets, we can
score goals, and so it proved.
When you come to places like this it's important to get to half time
still in the game, because if you give them a goal it can be tough. We
did OK first half. We came in 0-0, and you've got to credit Chris
Hughton for swapping Jonas Gutierrez and Ryan Taylor over.
He put Jonas on the right and Ryan on the left, and Ryan cuts in and
scores a winning goal. We know we can score goals. We've got a lot of
firepower and proven goalscorers.
We've seen Ryan Taylor do it enough times against us to know he's
capable of doing what he did tonight. It was on target and took a little
deflection, and fortunately gone inside the post."
Blades boss Kevin Blackwell said:
"I ran over a black cat
about a month ago- I thought I'd got away with it but obviously not and
we've been found out. We've just got to keep working hard and believing
in ourselves because if we play like that then hopefully, things will
start to go our way and we'll get the right decisions.
Decisions like the one we've seen out there are absolutely pivotal. I
don't think our keeper has really had a shot to save yet Harper has had
to make a couple of world-class stops out there.
Kyle (Walker) might be out between two and six weeks. It was a foul, and
of course it's a blow because we all know what a quality performer he
is. Newcastle couldn't handle him out there. He was causing them all
sorts of problems before he had to go off and, at the back, their
forwards couldn't get past him.
Decisions like that change games, but we've just got to keep working
hard because, if we do that, then hopefully they'll start going for us
for a change.
It was a foul on Kyle, the referee missed that, then Chris Morgan
inadvertently knocked it past Ian Bennett from Taylor’s shot. He did not
have to have a save to make, while Harper had to make save after save.
The two saves from Harps... the one from Henderson was world class.” |
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