Newcastle United fell to their third successive defeat at the Etihad yesterday as league champions Manchester City walked away 2-0 winners, but skipper Jamaal Lascelles noticed the one thing missing from Newcastle’s game that could have made the difference.
Captain Lascelles, recalled to the side in Fabian Schar‘s absence, noted in his post-match interview with NUFC TV, that the element of luck that was absent from Newcastle’s game: “We needed that one goal to just fall for us, or that one ball to just fall for us. We’ve not had much luck recently but we had a little spell and hopefully next game we can change that.” He continued, “For me the encouraging thing is, our performances are still good and I think goals will come and we’ll get back to clean sheets”
Newcastle captian Lascelles rues poor recent luck
It was a strange mix of emotions watching Newcastle succumb to a third 2-0 defeat in as many games. Once again we didn’t play badly. When we got beat under Steve Bruce the gulf in class was blindingly obvious, but that’s not the case any more. The score lines actually flatter to deceive, we’ve just been really, really unlucky. I’m not sure which one feels worse to be honest.
Our play in the middle of the park is fantastic, the keep-ball we play across the midfield is a joy to watch, but when the ball ends up in the final third – at either end of the pitch – we run out of luck. Sven Botman has now deflected two shots past his own ‘keeper in as many games and there were three incidents of the ball not doing what it was told in the opposition box yesterday:
Anthony Gordon swung a left boot at the ball to have our first shot on goal only for the ball to deflect off his own right foot to take it away from himself. Sean Longstaff just couldn’t get the ball down in time to unleash a shot from six yards, and when he finally did, Nathan Ake was on hand to block it. Then Callum Wilson lined up a volley on the edge of the six-yard box only for the ball to spin up off the outside of his boot and go nowhere.
The fixture list has been unkind lately
It’s easy for Newcastle fans to get carried away with the negativity after our recent run, but when you look at it objectively, we’ve played our bogey team, Liverpool, played out of our comfort zone at Wembley and then played at our bogey ground in the Etihad where we’re yet to win. It’s been a pretty cruel run of fixtures, but we can build on the good performances we put in during those disappointments.
A couple of tweaks to the starting line-up could see Newcastle firing again. Joelinton will be missing for the next two games so there has to be a change there, but it’s absolutely time to get Alexander Isak up to speed. He looked dangerous when he came on yesterday. His next goal is coming, and as much as I love Wilson, I think Isak’s next goal will come sooner than Wilson’s.
So as bad as this current spell is, as Lascelles said, there are a lot of encouraging signs. There’s no need to be hitting that big red panic button just yet.
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