Season 2006-2007

NEWCASTLE UNITED

4 v 2

AZ ALKMAAR

"Oba had a terrific game and it's just a shame he didn't complete his hat-trick when he went clean through near the end and hit the goalkeeper. Oba will cause problems for any defender in the game. The Premier League defenders now know what he is about and I'm sure they won't be getting so tight to him in the future.

"They'll be giving themselves a metre start because if they try to play level with him and try to make it a race for the ball they're going to get beat.

"What it means is that instead of going to Holland with a 4-1 lead we will go there with a 4-2 lead. Sometimes we would have got away with that one, sometimes we wouldn't and the referee thought it was a penalty. I don't criticise referees and I like to think it was an honest mistake.

"Other referees might have looked at it as totally accidental because Steven didn't move his arms. The most frustrating thing is that Shay Given saved the penalty and Scott Parker got back to make a terrific tackle, but the ball still skewed for the lad to put it in.

"We came out the blocks very fast and to be three-up so early on was a perfect start. It's nicely poised because, they have two away goals and if they beat us 2-0 they will go through.

"But I think we've shown enough pace to frighten them over there."

In an awesome first half display, which saw two goals by Obafemi Martins, one by Kieron Dyer and own goal, that had the 28,000(who could be bother to turn up) drooling with excitement. It was if we'd gone through a time machine, back to the Keegan days, where teams of all qualities were regularly slain with ease at fortress St James' Park. Those days are long gone but for a brief moment, happy memories washed through our minds, as we watched our black & whites heroes over run the opposition with a barrage of goals.

Our first goal came on eight minutes, when a neat flick from Duff released Dyer down our left flank and his cross was turned into his own goal by Steinsson.

The second came fourteen minutes later, a Nicky Butt through ball was flicked on by Antoine Sibierski, which again freed Dyer, who powered into the box and lifted the ball over the advancing keeper.

One minute later, the ball was played forward to Martins down our left channel, he then produced a fabulous run to take two defenders out of the game before converting with a low strike from the edge of the box 

On thirty one minutes, AZ pulled a goal back by ex-Rangers striker Shota Arveladze, however, it only took us six minutes to restore our three goal cushion. Solano pulled the ball back from the right hand side to Martins, who swept the ball home into the bottom left hand corner.

The second half was never going to be as good as the first half and it wasn't. The only goal of the half came on seventy three minutes, when AZ were awarded a penalty for an alleged hand ball by Steven Taylor. Replays showed it seemed more ball to hand but hand ball it was. Moussa Dembele penalty was saved by Shay Given and the player then fluffed an opportunity from the rebound but the ball did eventually find its way into the back of the net at the third time of asking from the more assured boot of Koevermans.

With two away goals the Dutch side will take plenty of heart from this, as we head to Holland next week knowing AZ Alkmaar have never lost a Europe home match in 28 games of trying. We certainly would have taken this scoreline before the match kicked off but this tie is far from over and an early goal by the Dutch in the 2nd leg will see the Newcastle United rollercoaster speed up and our finger nails take a battering.

No dreams of Glasgow yet but our quarter-finals spot is ours to lose.
 

AUSSIE MAGS