Sheepish Ritchie admits relief as miss goes unpunished
Newcastle United’s Monday-night hoodoo may be over, but Burnley’s 2018-19 malaise is proving rather harder to shift. Sean Dyche’s side, if they are not careful, will end up being this season’s Stoke City, a team who sleepwalk into relegation trouble by being consistently less than the sum of their parts.
Defeat at home by a side widely tipped to struggle should certainly set alarm bells ringing. The worry for Burnley is that the margin of embarrassment could have been greater; Matt Ritchie produced one of the most extraordinary misses of any Premier League season when presented with the chance to score a third goal for the visitors.
From around two yards out, he screwed into the side-netting, in front of an open goal, after Deandre Yedlin had pounced on Robbie Brady’s error to poke the ball across goal. As it was, Ritchie did not have to rue his failure too much.
“I was probably celebrating before I put it in the net,” Ritchie admitted. “I hope it doesn’t make “Premier League Misses”. I was delighted at the end when the whistle went. It was a huge relief.”
Newcastle’s victory ended one of the top division’s more curious statistics; they had lost their previous 10 Premier League games on a Monday night, a run stretching back almost six years. A more important fact: This was their third successive win.
A poor start is becoming a distant memory; the supporters must be praying Rafael Benitez eventually agrees to extend a contract that expires at the end of this season.
The support of owner Mike Ashley in the January transfer window would appear to be the key to that decision. “When we talk about my future and what can happen, we are talking about the future of Newcastle United, not Rafa Benitez,” he said. “We will wait until January and then see what we can do.”
It was a late night for Newcastle fans. Kick-off at Turf Moor was delayed by 30 minutes after Eddie Wolstenholme, the referee assessor, collapsed in the players’ tunnel; however, the Blackburn-based former Premier League official, in his mid-60s, was conscious as he was taken to hospital.
Burnley once again showed the vulnerabilities that have crept into their game. Where there used to be defensive discipline, there is disarray. They conceded two goals from poorly defended short corners in the opening 23 minutes; this would surely not have happened to them 12 months ago. “We need to get on the right side of the margins,” Dyche said. “We’ve given too many soft goals away.”
For the first, the home side failed to close down Ki Sung-yueng as he crossed, before Chris Wood’s feeble clearance ran loose to Federico Fernandez. His shot looped up off Burnley captain Ben Mee’s boot and beyond Joe Hart’s reach.
The second goal was every bit as bad from a Burnley perspective. Ritchie played a one-two with Ki and then crossed for Ciaran Clark to glance a header past Hart, who was as motionless as his defenders.
Given Benitez’s ability to close out matches, the home side must have feared they were out of contention, but gave themselves hope with a fabulous Sam Vokes header five minutes before half-time.
The Wales striker produced an extraordinary leap above Clark to meet Mee’s ball from the halfway line, sending a header looping over goalkeeper Martin Dubravka.
Newcastle should have put the game out of reach early in the second half as Ritchie produced his incredible miss, and it started to get hairy for Newcastle.
Wood had three chances; one held by Dubravka, one blocked by Yedlin, a third sent wastefully into the sky. Joselu then thudded a shot against a post for Newcastle, and they must have wondered if they would be denied a win. Not so.
“Winning is massive because it gives us more confidence,” Benitez said. “There is still a long race ahead but we are doing well.”