Honours even at Villa Park as Newcastle United get their Premier League campaign underway with a point
Newcastle United and Aston Villa played out a lively 0-0 draw at Villa Park on Saturday lunchtime, but it was a game that Newcastle will feel they should have won.
I think the general consensus amongst the Newcastle fanbase will be that if we had a striker, we would have won that.
Newcastle created by far the better chances, and new signing Anthony Elanga perhaps should have had the Magpies in the lead early on after going through one v one with Villa's new goalkeeper Marco Bizot, who almost single-handedly kept Villa in the game.
Elanga had a few opportunities that he should have perhaps done better with, but overall, it was a solid debut.
Ezri Konsa was sent off for Aston Villa with half an hour to go
Anthony Gordon once again proved that he is not a centre-forward, as his instincts for that role are severely lacking. The short time he played out on the left after Will Osula replaced Harvey Barnes, Gordon looked much better.
With Aston Villa going down to 10 men with about half an hour to play, Newcastle pressed and pushed but could not find a way through without a proper target man to aim for.
We can't really fault the players at all, though. Everyone played well; they went out there and did what they needed to do in every aspect other than scoring goals.
Who was your Player of the Match against Aston Villa?
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Nick Pope8%
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Kieran Trippier13%
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Fabian Schar8%
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Dan Burn33%
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Tino Livramento4%
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Bruno Guimaraes8%
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Sandro Tonali4%
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Joelinton0%
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Anthony Elanga13%
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Anthony Gordon8%
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Harvey Barnes0%
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Lewis Miley0%
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Will Osula0%
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Jacob Murphy0%
The early signs are positive for Newcastle United
Once we get that striker situation sorted, we can start to feel really positive about the season ahead. Whether we were made to look better because Aston Villa were so poor, only time will tell, but we'd have snapped your hand off if you'd offered us a point before kick-off, so we're happy with the result.
It's Liverpool next week at St James' Park in what promises to be a very spicy affair. Hopefully, we'll have a goalscorer in the squad by then.
We'll take this result as a good start to the season. We probably should have won, but at least we didn't get beaten.
