LEAPING LASCELLES
He’s 6ft 2in and jumpedan amazing 3ft to sink Swans
FROM fear, loathing and illness on Tyneside to joy and surprise in South Wales. Even by Newcastle United’s recent standards, this was quite a journey — not least because their manager was too unwell to make it himself.
Instead, Rafa Benitez was tucked up at home, nursing his way back to health after undergoing a procedure last week to address an infection in his groin.
The northern worry, quite understandably, is that his absence will soon be permanent, given his frequent grumblings about his club’s transfer ambitions and the admirers he has in other parishes.
But for all his pessimism, almost all justified, it was difficult yesterday to find fault in the collective commitment of the squad he has been left with post-window.
True, this win was largely about Swansea deficiencies and, indeed, Paul Clement was hopping mad about the performance.
But two gritty moments 16 minutes apart demonstrated why Newcastle took the points. The first came when Jamaal Lascelles bust a gut on the hour to clear off his line from Tammy Abraham. And the second came on 76 minutes when the same player stuck his head where no Swansea man would dare, to win it.
Nothing spectacular, no great flair, but three points built on patience and strategy — Newcastle sat back, did what dirty things needed to be done and slapped Swansea when the opening came.
They now sit in the top 10 on the back of two straight wins and two clean sheets. That may well just be papering over the cracks before the lack of squad strength tells a greater truth, but out of the anxieties of recent weeks, they are in none too shabby a position.
For Swansea and Clement, this was an exercise in head scratching. He lost his two best players in the transfer window — Gylfi Sigurdsson and Fernando Llorente — and the rebuild could be a slow one.
Renato Sanches got a start after his surprising loan from Bayern Munich but looked like a player who has barely played since riding his hype to Germany last summer. One stat showed he lost possession 14 times in the opening 28 minutes. Wilfried Bony only had the fitness for a place on the bench in his second coming.
Neither man could land a significant blow in a team performance that fell woefully short. Indeed, it was Swansea who seemed to suffer from breakdowns in communication, rather than the side led by a man with a phone in his bedroom on the Wirral.
In Benitez’s absence, the first call was to bring in Jesus Gamez and Jacob Murphy for Christian Atsu and the injured Chancel Mbemba and the strategy brief ran along the lines of holding fire and shooting at Swansea on the counter.
It worked a treat, with Swansea dominating but repeatedly coughing up possession without creating chances. It has been their recurring problem this season with only 17 shots lodged in three games before this one and an issue which Sanches will be expected to address.
Without that cutting edge Swansea were repeatedly hit on the break, most notably around the half hour when Joselu met Matt Ritchie’s cross and glanced a header across goal. It required an excellent save from Lukasz Fabianski.
The first-half controversy was provided when Ritchie went in high on Alfie Mawson and was punished with nothing more than a yellow card.
The best Swansea could manage in attack was a wasteful header from Mawson after a Tom Carroll corner, before Sanches had his big moment in the second half with a free-kick 25 yards out. He skied it over the bar. Clement puffed out his cheeks and did so again on the hour when Leroy Fer hit a perfect pass between Lascelles and Ciaran Clark into the path of Abraham.
His touch took him past Elliot and his cut-back was heading for goal only for Lascelles to block. It was a captain’s intervention, followed by a captain’s winner when he met Matt Ritchie’s corner with the firmest of headers. No marking worth the description from Swansea and no points, either. Benitez might even have managed a smile before reaching for the remote.