Palace victory Ast to be built on at Villa Park
RIGHT, before all within SJP get carried away on a wave of defiance and relief a challenge is there to be overcome.
Can Newcastle put two good results together back to back?
We will get the answer at Aston Villa come the week’s end.
The Mags have had more ups and downs than a yo yo this season in terms of results if not performances.
Victory at West Ham then a home defeat to Brighton, a win over Burnley immediately followed up on home turf again by Manchester United slaughtering them.
Finally edging out Everton only to be comprehensively downed at Southampton next time on the pitch.
One step forward, another back. What next?
Of course the late, late show at Crystal Palace with three points duly gathered in was most welcome but the reality is United are still what they are. No magic wand has been waved.
The game had 0-0 written all over it until two minutes from time when the gates invitingly opened.
A poor match and a poor Palace were swept away by Callum Wilson doing what he does so brilliantly _ feeding off scraps and scoring late, this his seventh goal in nine matches because like all good centre-forwards he remains ready to strike.
Wilson’s total in such a short space of time means he has scored more goals than United’s top scorer last campaign managed in a 38-game season. That’s the significance of his impact.
Lo and behold before we could recover we were served a real contrast - the rarity of a Joelinton goal.
Deflected, mind you, off former England central defender Gary Cahill to wrong foot the goalkeeper but he can claim it and deserves to because he had missed chance after chance beforehand with confidence low yet kept going.
Let us not forget he had beautifully assisted Wilson on United’s breakthrough.
However, just as we need more from United to be convinced of anything we also need more from Big Joe.
What we were grateful for nevertheless was that Steve Bruce, facing a barrage of criticism over negative tactics, at last made a positive move.
He played with a flat back four, put an extra body in midfield and fielded two up top.
Palace, like Newcastle, readily give up possession to play on the counter so they were the right opposition to have a go at.
This was a meeting between the two teams with the worst possession stats in the PL yet as in every match this campaign United saw less of the ball than their opposition - which takes some doing against Palace.
The figures: home side 58 per cent, Newcastle 42%.
Performances remain average at best, sterile most often, but somehow Newcastle scratch out enough results to keep their chin above the water line. Thank goodness for small mercies.
What was interesting was both sides were without their two top tricksters - Palace had lost 14 of their 16 matches without Wilfried Zaha while United had managed to win only one of 47 games when Allan
Saint-Maximin was not in their starting line-up.
So who could defy the odds? No one was the sound bet and for almost an hour and a half that looked spot on.
Then within the space of 100 seconds everything changed.
Why? Because United had Wilson and Palace did not.
Nor did they have Zaha who is not only their lock picker but top scorer to boot. through relegation.
Palace’s tendency to play in front of you with a lack of a cutting edge meant United’s two central defenders knew no one was getting round their backs.
Even so, Karl Darlow earned his wages with two saves for the camera as he has more often than not this see saw season.
However, the old adage that teams are only as good as their main striker holds a lot of truth. Ask Newcastle United.