Leon Back On The Goals Trail To Down Hoops
Scrappy Home Win Sees Magpies Move Up to 6th
It wasn't particularly pretty but Newcastle ground out a 1-0 victory over QPR early to move them up to 6th in the table above Liverpool and level on points with Arsenal in 5th after they lost at Swansea in the later game.
Leon Best grabbed the all important goal on 37 minutes, expertly controling the ball, turning inside and finishing past Paddy Kenny - his first goal since September.
It was good to see him get on the scoresheet not just because it got us the win but after a few months of Demba Ba grabbing all the goals and the headlines the focus and pressure is on the likes of Best to start chipping in espeically whilst Ba is away so I think this will do his confidence a lot of good and will hopefully put him on a bit of a run now.
It was a bit of a strange game really. They really came out of the traps and looked up for it whereas we were pretty sloppy and struggled to get any meaningful possession of the ball. The game surprisingly seemed to change after 25 minutes when Cabaye was forced off after a robust challenge from Shaun Derry.
Whilst I think it was very disappointing (and a mistake) that Pardew didn't start with Ben Arfa on the right I think he has to be applauded with bringing him on for Cabaye and making quite a radical change to the formation that saw us move to more of a 4-2-3-1 and take hold of the game and get the all important goal.
From then on we always looked like we would win against a pretty poor QPR side but obviously unless you get that important 2nd goal there is always the risk of them nicking something.
It was a performance that kind of harked back a bit to some of the early season performances where we didn't play too well but were solid and were rewarded in the end and was a good win in a game that could have been a potential banana skin with them getting a bit of a boost from their new manager.
In a sloppy performance nobody really stood out but I thought Santon and Williamson both had really solid games again. Pardew mentioned their positive impact on the team since they both came in last month and I think he was spot on with his assesment that after our sticky patch they have put a bit of steel back into a defence that was starting to creak a little.
Up top I thought Shola had a decent game, doing quite a lot of work and holding the ball up well on a number of occasions. It wasn't pretty at times and he didn't really get that many actual chances but like a lot of players he put the yards in today and sometimes if the whole team does that then it is enough to get the result.
Not a classic but a good win that leaves us in an excellent position going into 2 or 3 very winnable games in the next few weeks. Either way when you think we are now are on more points than we achieved in the whole of the season we got relegated yet we are only still in January then it is clear that the manager and the players are performing way above what was expected of them at the start of the season and long may that continue.
What were people's thoughts on today's game?
