It’s perfect Perez!
Newcastle’s hat-trick hero carries on his hot streak to sink Saints
AYOZE PEREZ was supposed to be the weak link for Newcastle United, the boo-boy who lacked pace and power, the one they blamed amid their early-season struggle.
An upgrade on Perez was needed, they said, and so arrived Miguel Almiron in January, not a direct replacement but a forward addition intended to add inspiration in the final third.
It is Perez, though, who has been the catalyst behind a late-season surge which could yet take Rafa Benitez’s side into the top 10 of the Premier League.
The Spaniard scored his first senior hat-trick here, a week on from his winning goal at Leicester, taking his Premier League tally for the season into double figures and moving him ahead of Salomon Rondon as the club’s top marksman.
Perez hinted recently that he could move back to his homeland this summer. He also said that he expected a call-up to the national team, an ambition not as outlandish as it once would have seemed.
And just as Newcastle supporters are desperate for Benitez to remain beyond this season, the manner in which they serenaded his compatriot Perez after his treble made it plain they don’t want to lose him either. At 25, his best years are still ahead of him.
Benitez is hoping that better years lie in wait for him, too. The manager wants them to be on Tyneside but he is still waiting to hear from Newcastle’s hierarchy after delivering his demands to them earlier this month. It will be a travesty should he be allowed to leave.
And his side were deserving of this victory, a sixth in seven on home soil. Had this been a Champions League fixture then Newcastle would almost certainly have had a penalty inside the first 60 seconds when Isaac Hayden’s shot cannoned into the hand of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.
Anthony Taylor, however, had no interest in the home appeals — ball to hand his interpretation. The incident, of course, would have gone to VAR in continental competition and, given that Hojbjerg’s arm was raised, a spot-kick would have been the probable outcome.
The injustice of that decision was nothing compared to the anger inside St James’ on 23 minutes when James Ward-Prowse cleaned out Almiron on halfway as the forward threatened to burst clear.
The Saints midfielder was his side’s last man and Almiron had the run on him before being cynically checked by a brutish shoulder barge. It had, without doubt, denied a clear goalscoring opportunity and Ward-Prowse had made no attempt to play the ball.
Somehow, though, he escaped with a yellow card. On reflection, it was a clever foul.
But the jeers soon turned to cheers when Perez scored his first on 27 minutes. The goal owed much to Hayden’s speed of thought in stealing the ball midway inside the Southampton half, Perez collecting 25 yards out but with much still to do, especially given the presence of defenders Jan Bednarek and Maya Yoshida. What followed he made look easy, drifting by the pair and working an angle for the shot before chopping back across goal and into the bottom corner. Within four minutes he had his second, this time sliding in at the far post to turn home Rondon’s teasing centre, climaxing what had been a swift and incisive break. Southampton had failed to register an effort on goal but two changes at halftime served to snap them from their first-half slumber. The arrival of Mario Lemina, in particular, made all the difference for the visitors and he steered into the bottom corner from 25 yards just before the hour. And they should have been level when Yoshida, pouncing on a pullback from Nathan Redmond, volleyed over from close range.
Newcastle struck a post through Ki Sung-yueng and Hayden’s deflected volley was clawed clear by Angus Gunn, but the hosts were far from comfortable.
The loss of Almiron to what looked a serious hamstring injury — he was in tears when he left the pitch — robbed them of a pacy outlet and Southampton pressed for what looked an inevitable equaliser.
And yet Perez completed his hattrick four minutes from time, applying a cute redirection to Matt Ritchie’s header with his own brow from inside the six-yard box. NEWCASTLE (4-2-3-1): Dubravka 6; Manquillo 6, Schar 7 (Fernandez 69min, 6), Lascelles 6.5, Dummett 7; Ki 6.5, Hayden 7 (Diame 77, 6); Ritchie 7, Perez 9, Almiron 7 (Atsu 64, 6); Rondon 7. Subs (not used): Darlow, Shelvey, Muto, Yedlin. SOUTHAMPTON (3-4-3): Gunn 5; Stephens 5 (Lemina 46, 7), Yoshida 6, Bednarek 5; Ward-Prowse 5, Romeu 6, Hojbjerg 5.5, Bertrand 5; Sims 5 (Armstrong 46, 6.5), Ings 5 (Long 76, 5), Redmond 6. Booked: Ward-Prowse. Subs (not used): Forsterm Austin, Slattery, Ramsay. Referee: A Taylor 5.