Christian Atsu, our Ghanaian winger who is on loan this season from Chelsea was the only one of our four players to score from his spot kick last night and even that went in off the under-side of the cross bar.
But the 24 year-old gave a good interview on the Newcastle web-site immediately after the game and everything the lad says is accurate.
We could have won but we didn’t and we have to move on and concentrate on the next game since that’s now the most important game.
You know we think he’s been well tutored by a certain Rafa Benitez.
🙂
Christian Atsu scores from his penalty
It was a loss that was hard to take because we were the better side and although the result was a disastrous one given the circumstances of the game – the lads played very well – that’s a big positive.
This is what Atsu said on the Newcastle web-site after the loss last night:
“You can see that everyone is very disappointed with this loss, but we have to refocus now on the games ahead which are more important now than the one we’ve just played.”
“We have a league game on Friday, and we can’t be thinking about this game. We have to concentrate on the game ahead.”
“On Friday, we have to give everything, and we have to react quickly.” “It’s so disappointing when you lose games like this but you have to react quickly.”
“I think that after we lost at home to Blackburn, today we came here and played a very good game, and unfortunately we lost a game we could have won.”
“We now have to concentrate and react quickly in the next game against Nottingham Forest.”
“It’s very, very disappointing because we could have won the game, and then there was a lack of concentration.”
“They got one chance and then they equalized. Penalties are just 50-50, and they won. We’re really disappointed.”
“They had the red card and then we scored, and we knew that it would be difficult for them to score.”
“But the chance that they got, they scored.” “I thought we played a very good game, but the result was not the best for us.”
“We had a lot of chances, even when it was 1-1. We created a lot of chances and we missed a lot of chances too,”
“We had more possession than them, and we were just unfortunate that we lost the game.”
“I think we were better than them. We created chances, we had more of the ball possession and we deserved to win the game but we lost, and that’s football.”
“Anyone can miss penalties – the best players in the world miss penalties.”
“We just have to look at the next game. It’s more important than the ones that are behind us. We have to concentrate on the future.”
The players have to recover quickly and get ready both mentally and physically for another tough game – this time at Nottingham Forest on Friday night.
That’s our bread and butter this season – picking up wins in the Championship – we must get promoted this season.
A win is what we need.
4 comments so far
Mag52
Nov 30, 2016 at 8:39 AM
Comment #1Disappointing result last night, no doubt about it.
We outplayed them in the first half but failed to convert our superiority. This is where we lost it.
32 goal attempts, and only a handful actually on goal says it all.
For me, Lazar is very much still a no.2 to Dummett, and Sels probably a no. 3 to Darlow and Elliot, once he gets back.
Moving on to Friday’s game, a session of shooting practice during training wouldn’t come amiss, along with decision making in and around the opposing penalty area.
A win at Forest is the tonic we all need to end the week.
JP...from The Rock
Nov 30, 2016 at 9:11 AM
Comment #2I was fuming last night in the manner we went out. Disgusting. Mat Sels is rubbish. He is the worst Goalkeeper I have ever seen in NUFC shirt apart from Jak Alwick and he was a kid so can’t really blame him. But this guy has bags of experience from plauing in Belgium. Whatever Benitez saw in this fool is way beyond me. The only bad buy he’s made it seems and it is seriousy costing us. We must get rid of him as he will never improve. I don’t care how young he is but a keeper that with all his experience and still can’t do the basics which is save a shot and parry it to the sides and out of danger is in the wrong profession and will never learn. I am also very dissappointed at how easy it was for Hull to get through our defense but the keeper should have done better again after a rather easy shot by them. Then the penalties is a gamble but my God they were awful but that is a gamble everytime, anything could happen there and it takes guts to take one in the first place. I get nervous everytime the ball gets near him and that shouldn’t be the case especially for a Goalkeeper.
Sels- 4
6- Lazaar was very wasteful and rash in his passing nearly cost us the game a few times with his inaccurate passing.
7- Shelvey had a great 60min then went off the boil and misplaced passes. But did well overall really.
8- Lascelles and Clark played very well apart from that incident were we conceded.
Anita was decent but his final ball let him down.
6- Rithcie good first half but then ineffective as he looked tired.
5- Gayle had an off day after all his huffing and puffing failed to make much of an impact unfortunately and missed some good chamces.
8- Gouffran probably one of the best we had out there last night he was everywhere but my oh my that penalty.
6- Diame was rather ineffective but managed to get the goal.
6- Atsu looked more lively as the game went on, did better when he was switched sides.
7- Murphey did well when he came on seemed like he didn’t miss a header and looked a threat from corners.
JP...from The Rock
Nov 30, 2016 at 9:13 AM
Comment #36- for Anita.
NoahJ
Nov 30, 2016 at 9:50 AM
Comment #4JP
whilst I’m not a fan of Selz (and agree his selection keeps costing us), I don’t think he was wholly at fault for the goal. At the time, there were five defenders around one hull striker, so he shouldn’t have even gotten the shot away. but, yeah, selz was poor to parry it straight into snodgrass
I agree with someone else on a different thread- once elliot is back, selz needs to be put out on loan (to an english club) to get him up to speed with the english league. he’s a good shot stopper (at times), but his all-round game, and inability to read games, is poor. Looking forward to elliot returning!