Eddie Gets His Starting Eleven Bright On

There was plenty of head scratching and some downright criticism of Eddie's starting eleven yesterday... and no more so than from The Mighty Wyn who was in meltdown at the mini blog meet in Bally's Casino bar before the game.

Difficult times call for brave decisions

After five successive defeats, a no doubt sobering meeting with PIF , and the dreaded R word floating around fans and the media, the pressure on Eddie was high enough for him to admit to a sleepless night before the game.

What also wasn't in doubt is that a sixth successive defeat would have sent the 'Eddie Out' brigade into overdrive and brought even more boos at the end of the game than we heard after the Bournemouth defeat - all in front of Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

Whatever positive backing was given to Eddie at the Matfen Hall meeting might just have gone pear shaped if Yasir had been party to a defeat and crowd dissent.

So; the easy decision, the safe decision, the low risk decision for Eddie would have been to play what many fans consider to be the best eleven players.

But no, as against Arsenal last week, Eddie made the brave decision to switch tactics and choose the eleven that he believed were best suited for this game.

That meant no starting place for Hall, Barnes, Gordon, Ramsey, Trippier or Woltemade.

"A resignation eleven" "Burn will get skinned by Minteh" "Eddie has lost the plot" "Four summer signings on the bench" "We are doomed,,, doomed I tell ya"

Those were just the polite reactions to Eddie's line up - the expletive deleted harangues were blasting out from ranting fans like an overblown snow machine on full throttle.

And, let's face it, many of those fans (in Keegan's famous words) would have loved it, just loved it, if the Toon had got beat and they could have wallowed in "I knew it" mode.

Tough though. Because Eddie made brave decisions, called it right, and won.

For once, it went our way

This was no easy win,

Brighton are an excellent team; high on technical ability, well drilled, and with some top players bang on form. Four wins in their last five games is evidence of that.

Right from the off they were on the front foot, slick passing and moves aplenty, and whilst the Lads weren't exactly chasing shadows it was Brighton who were in control.

But, when we did have possession we were looking decent and positive and a slick passing move of our own sent Murphy racing clear on the edge of the box.

He could have stayed down after the keeper slipped and clipped him, but no, he chipped a superb cross to Osula who out manouvered Van Hecke to head home. Watch the replay, Osula did well to get into a position where Van Hecke couldn't get a challenge in.

Slightly against the run of play? Maybe, but more of that was to come when some awful defending from a corner by Brighton left BDB to soar like a Blyth seagull and plant a header way beyond the keeper to put the Toon 2-0 up.

Fortunate to be 2-0 up? Maybe. But the eleven Eddie put out were grafting their backsides off and always looked a threat going forward.

The same applied to Brighton and as the whistle blew for half time this had been a cracking game to watch - but, of course - no fan thought a win was already in the bag.

And so it turned out.

A poor kick from Pope - yet another one - went straight to a Brighton player and a few quick defensive carving passes later Hinshelwood blasted the ball past Pope to bring Brighton right back into the game.

That was the cue for Brighton to smell blood and only a superb save by Pope from an overhead kick and a 'Wissa Miss' by Minteh prevented Brighton drawing level. Had they done that my bet is they would have gone on to win the game. But score they didn't.

Briighton's all out attacki for the equaliser inevitably left chances on the break and from one of those Wissa - with all the time in the world to know that Hall would find him with a pass - totally lacked any composure and fired it higher over the bar than he did against Arsenal.

Minutes later, another break, and a slip from Van Hecke left Wissa alone facing the keeper at a sharp angle. Instead of squaring it he tried to move and shoot and, luckily, the ball broke to Barnes who after a little jink buried it to send the crowd and Eddie daft with joy.

This was Eddie's day

There were some good performances from the lads today, but I'm saving all my praise for Eddie Howe.

For the first time time this season he has had the squad on the training pitch for two weeks without a game every three to four days on top of a packed injury list.

Pre- match my opinion was 'let's see if Eddie has waved a magic wand' and whilst he might not have exactly pulled a rabbit out of a hat, he came up with tactics and a team that pulled off a win against our bogey team and in form Brighton.

So, hats off to Eddie.

He'll have slept like a baby last night.

And so will all those fans, me included, who couldn't wait to put the relegation word to bed.

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