Newcastle United hammered the final nail into Sheffield United's Premier League coffin with a 5-1 win at St James' Park.
The 13 goals Newcastle have put past Sheffield United this season is the most one team has scored against the same opposition in a single Premier League season and in truth, it could have been more.
We have to give credit where credit is due, Sheffield United gave us a good game in the first half and could probably count themselves a bit unfortunate to go in level at the break. The Blades took the lead very early on through Anel Ahmedhodzic and kept pushing for more - likely buoyed by the fact that the hologram in goal, Martin Dubravka had forgotten to turn his hard light drive on so Ahmedhodzic's shot just went straight through him.
It was Big Dan Burn who almost single-handedly kept Newcastle in the game in the first half, making a glut of fantastic blocks in the box. It just goes to show how much better he is when he's played in his preferred position.
It took Newcastle 20 minutes to get back on level terms through Alexander Isak, but the game continued to play out like a basketball match as it flowed from end to end with the Blades coming closest to scoring again on several occasions.
The half-time whistle felt like an act of mercy for the Toon Army who were watching their side capitulate for the second time in a week.
However, the second half was a completely different story. Less than 10 minutes in, Newcastle were in the lead after Anthony Gordon floated in a superb free-kick to the back post for Bruno Guimaraes to meet with a diving header and set the Magpies on their way to a rout.
Gordon then won another penalty for Newcastle which was put away beautifully by Alexander Isak who must be wondering what he has to do to get a hat trick at this point. Sheffield United defender Ben Osborn added Newcastle's fourth on 65 minutes with a lovely little backheel that he knew very little about before substitutes Harvey Barnes and Callum Wilson combined brilliantly for our number nine to add the fifth.
It's not often that a game with six goals could be classed as low-scoring, but there were 35 shots between the two sides in the game, 12 of which were on target. It could have been such a higher scoreline.
Sheff United 'keeper, Wes Foderingham was determined to make sure that Isak didn't bag his first hat trick for Newcastle making a couple of superb stops to keep him at bay.
Burnley did Newcastle a favour too, picking up a point against Manchester United which means we are now just one point behind Erik ten Hag's side in the table. It would be nice if Burnley could do us another favour next week and roll over and let us do our thing.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
12 | 16 | 31 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
12 | 5 | 23 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
4 |
Arsenal
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
5 |
Brighton
|
12 | 5 | 22 |
6 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
12 | 14 | 19 |
7 |
Nottingham Forest
|
12 | 2 | 19 |
8 |
Aston Villa
|
12 | 0 | 19 |
9 |
Fulham
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
10 |
Newcastle United
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
11 |
Brentford
|
12 | 0 | 17 |
12 |
Manchester United
|
12 | 0 | 16 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
12 | -1 | 15 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
12 | -4 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
12 | -7 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
12 | -8 | 10 |
17 |
Wolves
|
12 | -8 | 9 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
12 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Crystal Palace
|
12 | -7 | 8 |
20 |
Southampton
|
12 | -15 | 4 |