Newcastle looked so much better tonight than they did at Orlando on Saturday, and the lads gave a good display and dominated the Columbus Crew throughout the game, with goals from Shola Ameobi, Fabricio Coloccini and the goal of the game from young Haris Vuckic in the last minute.
The game got under way and the Crew Stadium that holds 20,000, seemed only half full.
Newcastle played in their black and white strip and Columbus were in their yellow and black strip.
But Newcastle wasted no time in getting their very first goal on the American tour, after only 8 minutes, and it was local lad Ameobi who scored, and it was a good goal.
Crew captain Marshall passed the ball from the right inside to Eric Gehring, but the ball was not hit properly, and Ameobi challenged and robbed the defender, and then advanced into the penalty area.
Shola drew the keeper and then coolly slotted ball home past Gruenebaum, a great opportunist goal by the Newcastle striker.
Newcastle looked a lot better than they had done in Orlando on Saturday evening, and controlled the game for the first 20 minutes, and were looking neat and tidy.
Columbus were trying to play the offside trap, but were not doing a good job and a nice through ball by Marveaux found Ameobi only just offside.
After 25 minutes Columbus finally mounted a decent attack, and Ekpo beat both Enrique and Tiote and set up Grossman who from the edge of the area hit a good shot that fractionally wide of Harper’s right hand post.
The Crew continued to play the offside trap and Ba and Ameobi are dominant in the air against the shorter Columbus center-back pairing of Gehrig and Marshall.
On 34 minutes Anor held off Dan Gosling well, and got a shot in but it was well wide and Steve Harper in the Newcastle goal still has not made a save.
Then just before half time Tiote put a nice ball through to Ba, but the Columbus goalkeeper came off his line and outside the penalty box he handled the ball intentionally – and was sent off.
The referee had little choice but to show the red card, and it seemed a silly thing for the goalkeeper to do, but the Crew were down to 10 men.
Chris Konopka, the substitute goalkeeper was brought on, and it was striker Emilio Renteria who was the player taken off.
At half time Newcastle were still 1-0 up and were looking so much better than at Orlando, and hopefully the lads could get their much needed first win of the pre-season.
Newcastle made no changes at half time but Columbus made six subs at halftime.
The half started and Jose Enrique tweeted down the left wing (sorry about that one), and then pulled ths ball back nicely, but Dan Gosling hit the ball wide from just seven yards out – it could have been 2-0.
But Newcastle didn’t have to wait too long and after 51 minutes were 2-0 up.
Sylvain Marveaux sent in a free kick and the ball was loose in the box, and would you believe it, captain Coloccini got the ball and shot home from 10 yards right into the corner of the net – an excellent goal from the Argentine.
But that’s the end of the game for Fabricio, and he made way for 19 year-old local lad, Paul Dummett, who joined the squad only on Sunday for the injured Ryan Taylor, and Harper got the armband.
Newcastle went for the third goal, but after 55 minutes it was Cheick Tiote who picked up his customary yellow card.
On 58 minutes it was Dummett who got his first action, and it was a good header away from a cross.
Newcastle dominated Columbus’ 10 men and Tiote was replaced by Alan Smith on the hour mark, after Gutierrez had gone close with a good shot that was deflected, and almost squeezed in.
Paul Dummett looked solid in Newcastle’s defense as did James tavernier, and both youngsters were acquitting themselves well at the back for the Magpies.
On 73 minutes goal-scorer Ameobi was replaced by Leon Best and then it seems that Sylvain Marveaux had taken a knock and he was replaced by 18 yera-old Haris Vuckic.
Marveaux’s injury didn’t look too bad (fingers crossed) and the Frenchman was able to jog off the pitch.
At this stage of the game Smith and Vuckic played in central midfield and Steve Harper still hadn’t had much to do at all, with Newcastle still well on top.
On 80 minutes Dan Gosling went close and his first shot was beaten away by Konopka and Dan tried to put the rebound home, but he was tackled at the last second.
Gosling had a solid game tonight and looked good throughout and looked full of energy.
Newcastle went 3-0 up on 90 minutes and it was a wonderful goal from 18 year-old Slovenian Haris Vuckic, who has an eye for goal, as we keep saying.
Newcastle counter attacked from defending a corner quickly, and Vuckic found himself with the ball on the left hand corner of the box, and he hit a magnificent curling shot into the top left hand corner of the goal – what a goal from the youngster!
The final whistle blew and Newcastle won this game convincingly, and there were lots of positives for Alan Pardew to take out of the game tonight.
Job well done and a great way to finish the American tour.
Next up are Leeds United at Elland Road on Sunday.
Teams:
Columbus Crew: Andy Gruenebaum, Sebastian Miranda, Chad Marshall (c), Eric Gehrig, Shaun Francis. Emmanuel Ekpo, Kevin Burns, Cole Grossman, Bernardo Anor. Emilio Renteria, Tommy Heinemann.
Subs: Chris Konopka, Josh Gardner, Julius James, Korey Veeder, Eddie Gaven, Santiago Prim, Robbie Rogers, Dejan Rusmir, Ben Sippola, Aaron Horton, Justin Meram.
Newcastle United: Steve Harper, James Tavernier, Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique. Jonas Gutierrez, Cheik Tiote, Dan Gosling, Sylvain Marveaux. Shola Ameobi, Demba Ba.
Subs- Tim Krul, Fraser Forster, Paul Dummett, Alan Smith, Mehdi Abeid, Haris Vuckic, Leon Best
44 comments so far
GeordieGerman “allez les gars!”
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:38 AM
Comment #1Night lads.
Yorkmag, I’m normally positive (ask anyone). but bit worried that we/Ashley will now rely on the reserves coming through.
jackdnufc
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:39 AM
Comment #2Good game, great commentary too!
Genuinely entertaining night and I had a feeling we would get a result like this for our last game.
Never let any of us forget the name:
Neil Seeker (sp?)
for painting such a picture in our minds 🙂
jackdnufc
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:39 AM
Comment #3night lads!
davybtoon
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:41 AM
Comment #4i think vukics goal will show ppl what ive been saying all along this kid is star in the making
YankeeToon
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:43 AM
Comment #5Had to take a second look, “tweeted”. Not sure I have seen that move before.
shamsoftabriz
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:47 AM
Comment #6Happy for Vukic! Hope that made the late night worthwhile for everyone over there. Glad to have finally been able to listen to one of these matches. It’s a crime the first two were not broadcast in any format in the USA–then again, that’s the state of football over here, I’m afraid.
Glad there didn’t seem to be any other significant injuries either. I think Vukic is clearly the story of the night. With his size, his play may be what saves us from blowing 9 million on Peter Crouch. Lets cross our fingers for Erdinc….niehter Crouch nor Defore sound all that exciting to me.
Yorkmag
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:47 AM
Comment #7@GG, believe that you are, i personally reckon we’ll sign two more players and use the better end of our reserves and ship rest out on loan. Think pardew will get balance of team right with use of reserves and that. young’uns need proper playing time otherwise will never know how good they really are
shamsoftabriz
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:48 AM
Comment #8Ha! I spelled Defoe “Defore!” I think the announcer is rubbing off on me.
davybtoon
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:49 AM
Comment #9spidermag spidermag
toonie
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:54 AM
Comment #103-0 against a top US side with 4 or 5 first team missing…not too shoddy. Bring on Leeds 🙂
DeanToon88
Jul 27, 2011 at 3:01 AM
Comment #11Great result for the lads should give them a good confidence boost after 2 dissapointing Pre-Season defeats. Columbus Crew are a very decent american team aswell. I would have liked to see Ba play a bit better though. we definitley need another striker
~Cheik Mate~
Jul 27, 2011 at 3:21 AM
Comment #12@Deantoon88
We lost 1 pre season game.
pre season resutls so far
Win
Draw
Lose
Win
Charlietoon
Jul 27, 2011 at 3:22 AM
Comment #13@shamsoftabriz
The last game was streaming live from the Orlando website. No sound but considering the NUFC website never streams anything for free it’s not a bad deal.
shamsoftabriz
Jul 27, 2011 at 3:28 AM
Comment #14@ charlietoon
Ack. Oh well. Given the result of the Orlando game, I would only have been angered by it anyway.
Also, for those of you who are new fans, here’s the website for the Columbus Crew Announcer who introduced us to new concepts such as: Georgies, Newscastle, Spider Mag, “the arc,” gas cans, and Shola Ambeobi.
http://neilsika.com/resume.html
NUFCFAN76
Jul 27, 2011 at 4:27 AM
Comment #15Thanks Sham. Legend status earned.
NUFCFAN76
Jul 27, 2011 at 4:30 AM
Comment #16Anyone have the stones to drop him a line yet? Link to contact him…
ginkoh
Jul 27, 2011 at 4:43 AM
Comment #17At least we got no more injuries from this game. Good goal Harris !!
evildick
Jul 27, 2011 at 4:47 AM
Comment #18is he on twitter? i reckon he deserves a couple of thousand new toon followers!
evildick
Jul 27, 2011 at 4:49 AM
Comment #19@neilsika
who’d of thunk it?
Brutooon
Jul 27, 2011 at 5:00 AM
Comment #20This season will be the season Vuckic break in to the first team
edtheduck
Jul 27, 2011 at 5:44 AM
Comment #21A good result albeit against 10 men and perhaps some cautious optimism having listened to the commentary.
It would be good to see 4 or 5 of the youngsters get 15 or so games this season. We always seem very conservative in this regard compared to other teams.
evildick
Jul 27, 2011 at 5:50 AM
Comment #22yea i agree. personally i’d rather bring the likes of vuckic through instead of signing a crouch etc.
the kids just need time to become confident. not 3mins of a game a couple of times a year.
edtheduck
Jul 27, 2011 at 5:58 AM
Comment #23@ Evildick… My point exactly mate… How old were the Man U youngsters or Rooney or Gerrard or Otzil or Casillas when they all started?!
Show them some trust, give them some confidence!
NUFCFAN76
Jul 27, 2011 at 6:01 AM
Comment #24Message left for him:
Legend Status: Earned by you, my friend. Your style, prose and attention to detail as your words create pictures. For your creative pronunciation and your interesting portrayal of all things NUFC you are forever welcome in our ranks.
Starnufc
Jul 27, 2011 at 6:07 AM
Comment #25i was at this game and it was sweet we got off to a great start and ba look so out of shape he was tired by 30 minutes in and vuckic goal was dirty he cut up the right back and bent it right over the keeper finger tips
Baro
Jul 27, 2011 at 6:12 AM
Comment #26Starnufc
can u give us more info on the game as we only had commentary off official site and still have not seen any highlights…
Starnufc
Jul 27, 2011 at 6:26 AM
Comment #27ok well to be honest we didnt work hard at all we look pretty out of shaped but the crew only played half of their starters so we dominated the game… tiote and gosling looked good in the mid field and defense was solid all game our strikers looks lazy we were caught offside alot bc they were to get back and gutierrez look alot better on the left then right and jose was probably the worse game he ended up kicking the ball into the stand a couple of times when he dribbled out of bounds multiple times
liddz
Jul 27, 2011 at 6:58 AM
Comment #28How did Ba look anyone?
Starnufc
Jul 27, 2011 at 7:04 AM
Comment #29still out of shape but i still saw him regularly win air balls just no agility or speed yet
magpie6699
Jul 27, 2011 at 7:06 AM
Comment #30That’s it – Champions League here we come! (unless we lose against Leeds when we will be certs for relegation)
evildick
Jul 27, 2011 at 7:21 AM
Comment #31from @neilsika via twatter:
Raising my glass tonight to the #NUFC faithful. Thanks for listening and the kind words. Hope to enjoy a pint Tyneside someday.
instant legend.
Starnufc
Jul 27, 2011 at 7:23 AM
Comment #32mapies… oh yeah on week we r getting on top of the world next week we r suck and everyone hates everything we do
Brutooon
Jul 27, 2011 at 7:52 AM
Comment #33Messi, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez got lots of GAMES when they are 16-18 years old.
geoff777
Jul 27, 2011 at 8:02 AM
Comment #34Pleased to wake up to a win and no injuries …
Vuckic growing in confidence, I’d definitely prefer to see him play than sign Crouch, C.Cole or Defoe …
eaststandgeordie1982
Jul 27, 2011 at 8:09 AM
Comment #35Good win and good to get a few goals no injurys is amazing hope this continues through the rest of pre season! now the lads can come back home and weve got players we can add to the squad cabaye barton ranger sammy
nufcant
Jul 27, 2011 at 8:47 AM
Comment #36I want to see the goals, youtube has let me down.
NUFC 1892
Jul 27, 2011 at 8:58 AM
Comment #37GREAT RESULT!! BUT THIS IS WHAT SCARES ME:
http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier_league/epl_injury_table.php
eaststandgeordie1982
Jul 27, 2011 at 9:05 AM
Comment #38Harper williamson perch r fine guthrie fergie hba raylor are injured not sure if kadar is
dannyhunt
Jul 27, 2011 at 9:08 AM
Comment #39anyone know where i can watch the highlights? cheers
eaststandgeordie1982
Jul 27, 2011 at 9:09 AM
Comment #40Not sure danny they are bound to be on ssn