Newcastle 4-1 Chelsea (Isak 13′, Lascelles 60′, Joelinton 61′, Gordon 83′ | Sterling 23′, James sent off 73′)
ST JAMES’ PARK – The pass was perfection, as crisp as the bracing Tyneside air as it cut through a sea of blue shirts.
At first even Alexander Isak, Newcastle’s conjuror-in-chief and returning game-changer, appeared caught out by the precision of Lewis Miley’s pass. Perhaps, like the rest of us, he was simply open-mouthed in awe at the audacity of the 17-year-old with the boyish looks.
In a split second Isak regained his control, his finish as emphatic as Newcastle’s riposte to their critics was here. But for all there was to admire about his goal, it was his teenage colleague who proved the catalyst for a triumph every bit as impressive as the scoreline suggests.
They love Miley at Newcastle. This was his full home debut in the Premier League at St James’ Park but anyone who thinks it was a desperation measure by Eddie Howe hasn’t been paying attention.
Miley trained with the first team before he sat his GCSEs but has never failed any of the examinations Howe has set him. In training drills he looks the part, his rangey frame and perfect poise marking him out when he’s made cameos in important games.
But here he was, the boyhood fan from Stanley in County Durham, taking a Premier League game by the scruff of its neck to really announce his arrival to a wider audience.
Newcastle have been widely expected to dip into the January transfer market to resolve their engine room injury crisis but Miley’s presence means the need might not be so pressing. He is good enough and nothing they do next month will stand in the way of his development.
There was something symbolic about the excellence of an academy graduate against Chelsea’s misfiring millionaire’s row. The Blues have sacrificed homegrown talent to assemble their galaxy of stars but couldn’t live with a black and white group that, in Anthony Gordon, Miley and Joelinton, had more hustle than they did.
They also have the better coach. Howe had been hurt by Newcastle’s surrender at Bournemouth, putting himself through five different viewings of the defeat, but didn’t blame players who were dredging the bottom of the tank at Dean Court.
His team sheet on Saturday read, at first glance, like a cry for help.
Three kids with scant first-team experience and squad numbers in the fifties lurked at the bottom of the team sheet, rubbing shoulders with the trio of back-up goalkeepers. Chelsea, by contrast, had more than £200m in reserve – most notably Moses Caicedo and Mykhailo Mudryk kicking their heels on a bracing Tyneside afternoon.
But for all that the injuries might have left him with little other option than to select Miley, it was not a decision made under duress. The team wasn’t tweaked to protect him, rather it was sent out to make the most of his prompting, probing runs and passes.
How will Mauricio Pochettino respond to this setback? His Chelsea side got drawn into a game of basketball after Raheem Sterling’s excellent free-kick leveller, a dead ball awarded contentiously after he’d tangled with Kieran Trippier.
His team were wasteful – see Cole Palmer scuffing a shot after a rare misstep by Nick Pope – and then consumed when Newcastle moved through the gears in the second half. Jamaal Lascelles’ bullet header provided belief, Joelinton’s pressing to force Thiago Silva into an error 90 seconds later extinguished blue hope.
They became very ragged and it’s back to the drawing board at Stamford Bridge. Those signs of tentative progress spied against Spurs and Manchester City mown down by a black and white juggernaut.
Despite the advantages they hoarded here – a fully fit squad, no midweek European engagements – they remain a million miles away from being a convincing outfit. They were nothing short of dreadful in the second half, a throwback to timidity of the Graham Potter era.
Unpicking the reason why isn’t rocket science. Newcastle have let the football experts get on with it, recruiting to fit an identity that Howe has created.
That’s why Lascelles, who wouldn’t get in 50 per cent of Premier League first XIs, can step in and play with such authority while Chelsea’s blue riband players can resemble such a rabble.
You wonder whether the penny has dropped yet with their ownership group, who must have found their post-match Prosecco with their friends in the Newcastle boardroom particularly bitter.
Todd Boelhy and company may be close to Magpies’ co-owners Jamie Reuben, Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi but there are two competing visions of how to construct a club at play. There was no competition for which one looked more convincing on Saturday.
Gordon, outstanding throughout, added a fourth to seal a victory that ranks as the finest – domestically – of the season. They head for Paris on Tuesday with a spring restored to their step.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/Vm8BSRG
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