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***The Return of the King!***
What a fuckin game! My heart's STILL banging away like a demented bongo drum player! How the fuck did we play the way we did in the first 35 minutes, & end up 2-1 down? ¯\_(⊙_ʖ⊙)_/¯
We were all over them & played cheat code football for the first 25 minutes that was simply out of this world.
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Bernardo's backward flick goal through his legs was a thing of absolute beauty, & was the very least we deserved.
We were sitting comfortably, & then had a crazy 10 minutes starting with Walker not engaging Gordon. The ball reached him out on his left & Walker just crawled along like a stoned slug toward our box, giving Gordon the freedom of St James' Park.
By the time he woke up, Gordon was attacking a retreating & backtracking Kyle who was all over the place, but taking nothing away from Gordon, it was a brilliant shift onto his right & curling finish into the far corner past Ortega.
We still seemed shook by that goal when there was a 60-40 ball in favour of Doku who jumped out of the way of a sliding tackle. The ball broke to Guimarães who played a KDB-esque curling pass in behind to Isak, who bullied Dias & slammed the ball past Ortega to take the lead. WTF! \0/
Two individual errors, & two well taken, but undeserved goals imo!
In the second we toiled away & dominated possession 86%/14%, but Newcastle just erected a Black & white blockade & battled to frustrate us. We struggled to break them down & a change was needed. Enter stage left King Kev!
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KDB was only on for 4 minutes when he received a through ball in the Geordie's midfield. He strode forward looking like there was only a pass out wide to Doku on, but out of the Blue KDB passed the ball between the defenders legs & into the corner of the net for our equaliser.
We were all over Newcastle at this point & they were clearly playing for the draw, with the hope of snatching a winner on the break.
We kept the pressure on but still looked vulnerable to the counter. Doku looked like he'd run out of steam & was struggling to get behind the three players Newcastle had marking him. Enter stage left Bobb for Doku!
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Bobb was similarly being frustrated, & at this point I was happy to settle for a point, but hoping for a miracle, but who answered my prayers? King Kev! KDB reacted to Bobb's run into the box with a brilliant clip over the top to an on-rushing Bobb, & what a brilliant winner from the kid!
I couldn't believe how he perfectly timed his run, shrugged off Trippier & played a one-two off his left & right leg whilst off balance & punched the ball past their keeper! My head nearly blew the fuck off! :-)
Hard fought wins like this can make a season, & we certainly showed our mettle. The difference maker was our Ginger Prince KDB. Without him, at best I reckon we might have scraped a draw, but he stepped up on instinct & saved our bacon, so he's easily my MoTM.
I've no idea what Walker must be going through mentally, but he needs to sort his blummin shed out. Why he left Gordon alone for so long just beggars belief.
This was one of the PL games of the season & thankfully we came out the victor to keep the pressure on the Dippers, Arse & Villa.
We've clearly physically benefitted from another mid-season week off, but our defensive frailties nearly cost us again in a game we near enough dominated from start to finish.
Hopefully the mid-season break & warm weather training camp will sharpen us up, & we'll stop being so profligate in front of goal & so shaky defensively.
All said & done, it was a good day in the end.