Season 2010/2011 – Match 2
Date: Sunday 22nd August 2010
Kick-off: 1:30pm (BST)
Venue: St James’ Park
Attendance: 43,546
Referee: Martin Atkinson (Yorkshire)
Teams
Newcastle: Steve Harper, James Perch, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas Enrique, Wayne Routledge (Shola Ameobi 77), Alan Smith (Ryan Taylor 76), Joey Barton, Jonas Gutierrez (Xisco 81), Kevin Nolan, Andy Carroll
Subs: Tim Krul, James Tavernier, Haris Vuckic, Peter Lovenkrands
Booked: James Perch, Alan Smith, Joey Barton
Goals: Joey Barton (12), Kevin Nolan (31, 87), Andy Carroll (34, 67, 93)
Aston Villa: Brad Friedel, Luke Young, Stephen Warnock, Richard Dunne, Stewart Downing, Ashley Young, Stephen Ireland, John Carew (Nigel Reo-Coker 65), Marc Albrighton (Emile Heskey 57), Stiliyan Petrov, Ciaran Clark (Habib Beye 89)
Subs: Nathan Delfouneso, Brad Guzan, Eric Lichaj, Barry Bannan
Booked: Reo-Coker
Manager Chris Hughton said:
“That is a wonderful achievement. We are realistic. We won’t get too many days like that. To score six against the likes of Aston Villa, it doesn’t come round too often. We have to get feet on the ground. It will be tough away from home next in the league. But we will spend the rest of today enjoying it. Andy (Carroll) has developed his game, added goals to his game. Whether it is too early for England is for the England staff. There are areas he can improve. How far he can go depends on himself. He is a throwback.”
Man-of-the-match Andy Carroll said:
“I just concentrate on myself I know I can play football and score goals like I did, and that’s what I go out there to do. Obviously, it’s great for people to see what I can do and stuff, but I’m just happy with three points and all the lads playing like they did. It was a great game and a great performance by all the lads, and getting a hat-trick in the first game of the season at home was fantastic. There were no headers in it – they were all left-footed – but really it was all about the quality of the balls that went into the box for me to score the goals. Last season, we didn’t lose here and before the game that’s what we were all talking about. We just went out like we did last season and proved a point to anybody who was doubting us. We’ve got to keep working hard week in, week out. I thought we were pretty unlucky against Man United, and now we’re showing what we can do.”
Match Report
I wasn’t really sure how to start this match report I’ve had to log onto numerous sports websites just to double-check the score was correct. In the good old days of Grandstand on the BBC, where the vidiprinter used to roll up our TV screens with all the latest and full time scores, this match would have been one of those rare results where they would need to print the number of the score to prove it was not a misprint…
FT: Newcastle United 6 (SIX) v 0 Aston Villa
There you go for old time sake 6-0 Grandstand style!
Back to the match report, it was a rampant Newcastle United that put Aston Villa to the sword with a swashbuckling performance lead by new number 9 Andy Carroll. Man-of-the-match Carroll picked up where he left off at Old Trafford last week and lead from the front with a master class in forward play.
However, the match didn’t start great for the Magpie’s with Villa dominating the opening encounters and on 9 minutes a Stiliyan Petrov through ball caught the Newcastle defence napping and the on rushing Ashley Young was recklessly brought down in the box by Steve Harper. Up stepped striker John Carew but the Norwegian international blasted his penalty high over Harper’s crossbar.
Three minutes later and Carew was ruing his miss further. Joey Barton struck a stunning 30-yard strike that flashed past Brad Friedel into the back of the net to spark Newcastle into life.
On 31 minutes Newcastle were 2-0 up and the momentum was swinging the way of the home side. Jonas Gutierrez and Jose Enrique combined well down the left flank, Enrique lofted the ball to the back post where Carroll headed the ball back across the goal to Nolan, who’s header was well save by Friedel but Nolan reacted first and header home the rebound.
And it wasn’t long before the home fans were celebrating again, Villa failed to clear a Barton corner and the ball fell to Carroll who quickly half volleyed the ball home for his first goal of the season. 3-0 half-time.
The second half saw Newcastle really force home their dominance with the Villa players looking resigned to defeat. It was 4-0 on 67 minutes after another assist from defender Williamson who flicked the ball on from a free-kick and again Carroll reacted first to volley the ball beyond Friedel.
Now the Magpies were really motoring, not seen for a very long time they were looking like they might score every time they went forward. Nolan got his second in the 87th minute when he scored from close range following a corner and the fairy tail was complete in injury time when Carroll got his hattrick.
Carroll picked up the ball just over the half way line, played a brilliant cross field ball to substitute Xisco who took the ball forward then played a fine through ball to the on rushing Carroll and the Geordie took one touch before slotting the ball past the advancing Friedel. Unbelievably that was the first hattrick by a Newcastle player at St James’ Park since former number 9 Alan Shearer got one in 1999.
All the plaudits will naturally, and quite rightly, go to Carroll but this was a fine all round team performance. The players seemed to grow in confidence with every goal and their positive play despite the game already being won was extremely encouraging indeed. This 90 minutes showed more commitment and belief than was shown during the entire relegation season. Times have certainly changed on Tyneside and while we will have some poor performances and bad results in the months to come, we finally appear to have a set of players that really does want to play for the manager and the club.
Andrew McTernan – Row ‘S’ Army
