Newcastle manager Chris Hughton thought his fighting Newcastle side fully deserved their point against Chelsea this afternoon.
Chris Hughton – fully deserved the point this afternoon
The match ended in a 1-1 draw at St James’ Park, although in those last 20 minutes Chelsea went all out for the winner, but the Newcastle defense stood firm with Sol Campbell and Steven Taylor both looking in good form at the back for the Magpies.
Andy Carroll scored first for Newcastle after just 6 minutes, when he took advantage of a howler by Alex, and then on the stroke of half time Salomon Kalou equalized for the Blues.
Hughton talked to Sky Sports after the game.
“You are fearful every time they attack because of what they have got, they had got the ascendancy, and we conceded a poor goal,”
“But credit to every one of our players, we dug in and we got to a stage where if you can get comfortable against a side like that, then we ended up being a touch comfortable.”
“You get to that stage of the game where the joy of getting something from the game is a little bit more than the possibility of losing the game.” “And as I said they have got so much quality, it is a little bit of every time they attack there is that fear.”
“But we dug in and I don’t think anyone seeing that game today can deny we deserved something from it.”
Newcastle had some heroes all over the field today, but the two center-backs Steven Taylor and Campbell have to take special credit, and Cheick Tiote was again in fabulous form for the Magpies, and we missed him a lot more than we realized last week at Bolton.
And it was good to see Wayne Routledge back in form, and he played his heart out down the right wing for the Magpies this afternoon.
There are a lot of positives Chris Hughton will take out of this game this afternoon, that’s for sure, and Joey Barton will be back at the Hawthorns next weekend, and he will hopefully put in those crosses for big Andy to head home.
Now we have to beat the in-form West Brom next weekend, since we still have just two points from the last four league games.
Comments welcome.
20 comments so far
Thump
Nov 28, 2010 at 5:27 PM
Comment #1I just don’t get how we scored and then sat back – what was Hoots thinking?
jimiley
Nov 28, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Comment #2Thump,
Its called psychology. Thats what inferior teams do instinctively. Good defensive performance. Really worried about Jonas, the ultimate rubber man who falls over at the threat of a puff of wind. Cannot shoot and cannot cross but he also loses the ball in dangerous places when he should not lose it (thats why he is a rubber man) and the rest of our midfield and defence are pushing out. He loses it in places where their midfield is able to break on our back four. Vastly overrated.
ilde2551
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:02 PM
Comment #3@ thump.
What was hoots thinking?
Hmm, let me think… Ohh yeah, what about how to tactically mastermind getting a point against the premier league champions? And how can you possibly say we sat back? We played with two strikers all game, we just defended brilliantly.
baro
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:15 PM
Comment #4http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature?id=846446&sec=england&cc=5901
WE GOT DRAWED WITH STEVENAGE!!
HAVEN”T HEARD OF THEM EVER!
pearceet
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:23 PM
Comment #5STEVENAGE AWAY FA CUP
pearceet
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:23 PM
Comment #6ah baro got there before me!!
baro
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:26 PM
Comment #7HAH! 8 minutes b4 u!
baro
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:27 PM
Comment #8Why do we get away to a poor side?
pearceet
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:28 PM
Comment #9yeh didnt notice that!!
awesome_fumaca
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:28 PM
Comment #10baro- you serious? We played them a few years ago in the cup- and they took us to a replay too! (actuallly, it wasn’t really a “few” years I guess, think it was ’98)
pearceet
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:29 PM
Comment #11but id rather them than manure away. for us it is a great tie we can send our youngsters out with REASONABLE knowledge that we wont screw it up. But it is the FA Cup……….
partizanovec
Nov 28, 2010 at 6:51 PM
Comment #12Well Baro, you never heard of them but we played against them in, I think 1996-97 when we drew 3rd round 1:1 at SJP and won there 1:2 in replay.
How old are you?
toonster88
Nov 28, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Comment #13really cant give credit to sol campbell.he’s useless.more of a burden.he’s past his time and should realise it.strarting from blackpool how many home games have we given away.its these small things that dont seem to matter now that are most important come april-may.
G
Nov 28, 2010 at 7:06 PM
Comment #14toonster88, totally disagree, besides, he is here for backup only. You can’t knock his CV, and if Wenger was offering him a new contract, they you know he still has it.
Tiote4PM
Nov 28, 2010 at 7:23 PM
Comment #15Jimiley
Couldn’t agree more about JONAS. He cannot cross, shoot or pass. As an outlet from our area he is good….BUT he is like Forest Gump. He just runs until he loses the ball again! RELEASE the ball…. pass! I find myself screaming at him.
Good result today.
HWTL
moonraker
Nov 28, 2010 at 7:27 PM
Comment #16I can’t believe all the negative comments after we’ve just taken a point against the champions. If I’d been offered it before the start I’d have snapped your hand off!
It wasn’t pretty but the tactics were right against that class, given we were without Barton et al. I’ve seen us taken apart too many times by good teams when we try to outplay them in midfield.
We let them have the ball and defended deep. If we had defended on a high line they would’ve murdered us with their pace.
My only criticism is Shola should have come off much earlier. I don’t know what it is but in certain games he just seems totally off the pace; he looks like he’s playing in slow motion! Hoots only kept him on because he was captain.
Anyway I’m more than happy with the point 🙂
GeordieDan
Nov 28, 2010 at 7:32 PM
Comment #17toonster88>
U talk some utter bo**ox! Campbell was absolutely solid today for us. Would you rather have had Kadar teaming up with Taylor against Drogba, Anelka, Kalou and co? Wey aye. We would have been destroyed.
Campbell isn’t the fastest and I agree that his best days are behind him but his lack of pace is countered by his reading of the game and positional awareness.
He inspires confidence and commands the defence. At the very least he is great cover for our no.1 choice CB’s plus who else if better to bring out the best of our younger defenders coming through?
Conversely I thought Guthrie was terrible today and he was playing in the centre of the pitch just like he wants to. Very disappointing.
Great result though, shame it couldn’t have been a win!
chris6033
Nov 28, 2010 at 8:23 PM
Comment #18@ toonster88.. ??? i thought campbell looked good today, the tackles he made on anelka were great, Impreesive still was the fact he and tayls havent played together this season and BOTH did exeptional.
Brutooon
Nov 28, 2010 at 11:48 PM
Comment #19Campbell and S.Taylor look good despite their lack of regular football.
if they can keep their performance, then its hard for CH to choose our best CB
Sav
Nov 29, 2010 at 2:34 AM
Comment #20Totally. The performance of Taylor and Campbell has to be the biggest positive for us. The 2 fullbacks were good too, but for the two coming in for their first starts of the season, it was a tremendous effort.