It wasn't even a week ago that we were cursing the way our season was shaping up but since Sunday Newcastle United have won two on the bounce.
Alexander Isak is well and truly back on the goal trail after scoring his third goal in as many games to win the game for the Magpies. That's two 1-0 wins in a row against Arsenal at St James' Park and hopefully it's a start to us turning around out fortunes against the Gunners.
Today's performance was probably even better than that of Wednesday night with Martin Keown saying at full time on TNT Sports that any of Newcastle's side could have picked up the player of the match award.
It was an accomplished performance with every man in black and white playing their part perfectly.
Arsenal had plenty of possession but Newcastle were like a brick wall. Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall were exceptional in defence with Hall picking up TNT's Player of the Match purely because he was judged to have had a more difficult task by virtue of having to mark Bukayo Saka, but for me, the award would have gone to Tino who was an absolute rock.
Anthony Gordon playing on the right flank whipped in an inch-perfect cross for Alexander Isak to nod home on 12 minutes showing just what can be achieved if you play a right-footed player on the right-wing.
Joelinton and Joe Willock linked up brilliantly over on the left as they seemed to switch positions regularly to keep Arsenal on their toes.
Going in with a one-goal lead at half time, I was worried that Mikel Arteta would rally his troops for the second half, but the Gunners only actually came alive in the dying minutes with Declan Rice nodding their best chance of the game wide of the mark very late in the game.
Despite Arsenal pinning Newcastle back for the last ten minutes, it was a rare, and odd feeling of not being at all worried that they were going to nick anything. It would have been super cruel if Newcastle had dropped their first points of the season from a winning position to a late Arsenal goal because they absolutely wouldn't have deserved it.
Thankfully, Newcastle hung on to move back up to eighth place in the league ahead of the rest of the weekend's fixtures. The climb is on and what a way to get back on track.
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 |