The Good, The Bad, and The Average #29: NUFC player ratings vs. Southampton (a) [PL23]

 · January 25 2025, 18:15
The Good, The Bad, and The Average #29: NUFC player ratings vs. Southampton (a) [PL23]
Serena Taylor/Newcastle United
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Newcastle United survived an early scare to make relatively light work of Southampton at St Mary's on Saturday afternoon, Eddie Howe's side running out 3-1 winners in the end.

The Magpies played much of the second half in second gear after Sandro Tonali's brilliant third goal, the Italian building upon a magnificent first-half brace from the irrepressible Alexander Isak.

Before that, the hosts had taken the lead thanks to the head of Jan Bednarek, who was given the freedom of the penalty area to head home with Tino Livramento's defending particularly poor.

A two-goal victory was probably what we'd have predicted pre-match and it was great to get through another 90 minutes without injury or incident. We're ticking along very nicely indeed!

Here's how we scored everyone involved, from our superb Swede to the hapless dolt with the whistle.

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Alexander Isak drew level with Erling Haaland and within two goals of Mohamed Salah with his strikes today

The Good

Alexander Isak never ceases to amaze. He won and scored the penalty to drag us level—finishing brilliantly from the spot after a long wait—and scored an even better second when sent clear by Jacob Murphy. The Swede also played his part in the third with a delightful chest pass to Gordon and ran the Southampton defence ragged throughout the game.

What a pleasure it was to see Sandro Tonali scoring a league goal, 18 months after his first against Aston Villa. He won the ball back superbly to set the move away initially and drove forward onto Anthony Gordon's pass from there, finishing so calmly after giving the Saints goalkeeper the eyes. He was easily the best of our midfield trio otherwise, too.

At the back, Dan Burn and Lewis Hall did a good job of locking down the left side of the pitch. Burn seemed to relish the battle against Paul Onuachu—possibly the only time he'll face anyone taller than him—with the big man from Blyth making a massive saving tackle on the striker in the second half. Hall was quieter in his work but never looked too troubled.

Our Brazilian pair Bruno Guimarães and Joelinton were decent enough without being at their best. Bruno played some lovely passes in the first half but faded out of the game a bit after the break, while Joelinton did his defensive work well but was quite wasteful going forward.

Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon each got an assist, which made up for otherwise patchy displays from the pair of them. Murphy's pass to Isak for our second was perfect and he hit a cracking 25-yard effort off the post in the second half, while Gordon played a cracking first-time ball to send Tonali clear to make it 3-1. We'd like to see a lot more from our number 10, though, who was sloppy in possession once again.

Kept between the sticks despite the return of Nick Pope, Martin Dúbravka justified the faith in him with another solid display. His best save came after his only error when he was forced to deny Taylor Harwood-Bellis from close range having failed to deal properly with a corner.

Eddie Howe is pretty good at bouncing back from bad results, isn't he? Even though we fell behind here, we were at it from the first whistle and could probably have scored a few more if we'd kept our foot on the gas for longer. Conserving energy at this stage of the season is no bad thing, though!

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The Swedish striker won and scored a penalty to equalise and finished with supreme coolness for his second

The Bad

Southampton are statistically the worst side to have ever darkened the door of the Premier League, with just six points in the bank. They had their moments here, but it was easy to see why they've struggled so much. We seemed to have acres to attack in the first half in particular and it was a surprise we didn't manage to bag more than three times.

Sam Barrott did his best to level the playing field for the hosts, somehow failing to see the clear foul on Isak for the penalty and being sent to the screen by VAR to embarrassingly overturn his non-decision. He seemed to annoy the home fans as much as the away ones and we were left perplexed by the way he managed the contest. That's three times we've suffered him this season and he's never scored better than a '5'.

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Sandro Tonali wrapped it up with a brilliant finish for the third after winning the ball back in midfield

The Average

Tino Livramento wasted a huge opening early on when failing to pick Isak out in the box with a simple square pass and was largely at fault for Southampton's first goal when failing to pick up the free man in the middle of the box. Thankfully, the young fullback recovered from there to deliver a composed performance with and without the ball.

Inside of him, this wasn't Fabian Schär's finest hour and a half in our colours. The Swiss centre-back has been a bit shaky lately and he was extremely lucky to get away with leaving a high ball late on. He almost let Southampton back into the contest when allowing Fernandes to score the resulting one-on-one, but the Portuguese was a whisker offside. Phew.

Lewis Miley and Joe Willock arrived from the bench in the 79th minute and were each tidy enough without being spectacular. We'd like to see more of Miley, if possible, as he always looks to have something about him when he gets a chance.

Sean Longstaff was introduced in added time and only had one touch, though Miguel Almirón seemed determined to make the most of what might be his last appearance for the club. The Paraguayan had one good run and shot (with his right foot!) that forced a save from Alex McCarthy. He was serenaded by the brilliant away following, too, which was great to hear.

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This wasn't Bruno Guimarães best performance in the middle but he still played a good part in the win

The Breakdown

It's nice to be able to dish out a few 8s and 9s again!

The XI

Martin Dúbravka – 7

Tino Livramento – 6

Fabian Schär – 6

Dan Burn – 8

Lewis Hall – 7

Bruno Guimarães – 7 (off 79')

Sandro Tonali – 9

Joelinton – 7

Jacob Murphy – 8 (off 90+2')

Alexander Isak – 9 ⭐️ (off 79')

Anthony Gordon – 7 (off 88')

The Subs

Lewis Miley – 6 (on 79')

Joe Willock – 6 (on 79')

Miguel Almirón – 6 (on 88')

Sean Longstaff – 6 (on 90+2')

The Gaffer

Eddie Howe – 8

The Opposition

Southampton – 3

The Ref

Sam Barrott – 4

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We beat Fulham 3-0 at St James' last season but they're a very different proposition in this campaign

The Next

We're back at St James' Park for a meeting with Fulham on Saturday afternoon. It's a traditional 3 p.m. (GMT) kick-off that won't be shown on TV in the UK.

Today's 3-1 victory was about par given how poor Southampton are, but we'd take any sort of win against Marco Silva's dangerous side.

Howay the lads!

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