It's nothing more than we deserve. I have supported newcastle for as long as I can remember! With my earliest footballing memory being a wondergoal from our own fan favourite Sir Alan Shearer in 1999. Anyway, enough about me, lets recap this weekends performance.
It was fairly obvious the side that would start at Wigan with the club having the 8 of the starting XI start every game this season and it remained unchanged as we all expected. No surprises on the bench either however Smith returned from injury to retake his place warming the bench ( something Abeid, Vuckic or Gosling would do just as well )
The unchanged side struggled to find anything special in the first half and the only piece of Newcastle brilliance came from on-form keeper Tim Krul (must be Netherlands number 1 in the near future) as he managed an excellent stop from a lively Victor Moses. That was the only exciting thing in the first half and we could count ourselves lucky that we still had 11 men on the pitch after Best lunged in with a rash tackle that some referees could have deemed worthy of a red.
Second half and Demba Ba wasted the opportunity for his sixth goal in four games with a timid header straight at Al-Habsi. Some claimed it crossed the line however replays show it wasn't fully over. The first tactical genius from Pardew was to take off the woeful Obertan and replace him with Marveaux. 6minutes after his introduction and the magpies were a goal up. Marveaux's touch set up Cabaye for what was a well taken curler that glided into the top corner.
1-0 final score. In seasons gone by Newcastle would have lost that at the death however this new look side that is now only a win away from second place has shown character and a willingness to succeed for the full 90minutes and most importantly we are scraping the results in. It wasn't a convincing victory but it's 3points and that's all we could have asked for.
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