MURPHY’S HOMEWORK PAYS OFF FOR MAGPIES
MANCHESTER CITY 3 NEWCASTLE UTD 1: WINGER TAKES POSITIVES FROM ETIHAD DEFEAT
Jacob Murphy says he knew exactly how he was going to beat Manchester City keeper Ederson – before he took to the field at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.
The Newcastle United winger scored his first goal for the Magpies in Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Manchester City.
Murphy, sent clear by Ciaran Clark, lifted the ball over the advancing goalkeeper to get the Tynesiders back to 2-1 down in the second half.
The 22-year-old summer signing from Norwich – who has steadily grown in confidence over the past two months – had done his homework on Brazil international Ederson before the game.
“It was a great feeling to finally score for Newcastle – I’m buzzing for that,” said Murphy, recalled to the starting XI for the trip to the Premier League leaders.
“But, ultimately, the result didn’t go our way, so that maybe puts a little bit of a dampener on it. Now, it’s on to the next one.”
Murphy had watched videos of Ederson before the game, he revealed.
“I felt confident I would score,” he said. “I’d seen highlights in recent weeks that people were chipping the goalie, so I just thought ‘keep your composure’, and then hopefully he goes down.
“He did that, and I just put it over him.”
Murphy is hoping that it’s the first of many Premier League goals for the club.
“I’m building things up,” said Murphy. “I knew once I started playing more minutes, I could produce for the team, with goals and assists.
“It’s all about keeping on contributing now.”
Sergio Aguero scored a perfect hat-trick for the Premier League leaders to take his goal tally against Newcastle to 14 goals from 12 games.
Newcastle, however, were in the game until Aguero scored his third goal seven minutes from time.
“We made it hard for them,” added Murphy, with the Magpies remaining in 15th place, albeit now just a point above the drop zone.
“It was all about trying to contain them in the first half, and then take the chances if we got them, but that wasn’t the case in the first half.
“In the second half, we went for it a bit more, and we created some good chances.
“We went for it a bit earlier on. We saw an opportunity and tried to take it, and were close in the game at 2-1.
“Maybe we could have got the equaliser, but we got stung with the third goal.
“The positives we can take is that we were creating chances against a top team.
“You could see in the second half we were putting on pressure, and I think we’ve got to do that more.”