Perez puts Newcastle on brink of safety to add to Wagner’s woes
Having endured rather than enjoyed a tense, tetchy and often infuriating game, there was a sense of euphoria at the end of it for Newcastle United with a win that means Premier League survival is almost secure.
Safety is not assured, not yet, but Newcastle have put enough distance between themselves and the relegation places to breathe easily and sleep soundly. The Magpies’ form since Christmas suggests it is now only a matter of time until they accrue enough points to stop worrying about playing in the Championship again.
Naturally, given his cautious nature, manager Rafael Benitez continues to stress that nothing has been decided yet, but it feels like the worst of the suffering is over on Tyneside after Ayoze Perez scored the only goal of a game Newcastle dominated from start to finish.
Perez earned the acclaim of the crowd, but credit is also due to Kenedy, who kept his composure inside the area after goalkeeper Jonas Lossl had palmed Christian
Atsu’s cross into his path, to set him up with a perfectly weighted pass. “We have not reached 40 points yet, so we are not safe, but I’m happy,” said Benitez.
“I think there is a sense of satisfaction at the end of a game like that because it was a difficult game, but we stayed calm, we kept creating chances and we did almost everything we had worked on well. We had a lot of chances and we did not take them, but all I kept saying to the players was stay calm, keep on doing what you are doing and the goal will come.”
It took far longer than it should. Dwight Gayle could have had a hattrick in the first half but lacked the composure to finish things off in front of goal. The former Crystal Palace striker, who has constantly fought the accusation he is a brilliant Championship goalscorer, not clinical enough to play in the Premier League, missed a header at the near post when he failed to get a touch on the ball, lifted a shot over Lossl, but wide, after a quick freekick from Jonjo Shelvey and hooked an even better chance over the bar from a DeAndre Yedlin cross.
Not that Gayle was the only Newcastle player not to make the most of the openings created. Matt Ritchie was also sent in on goal by Shelvey, but he shot into the legs of Lossl. Clinging on, though, was all Huddersfield managed to do. David Wagner tried to claim his plan had worked perfectly, suggesting his team had created the better chances in the second half and that they should have got at least a point from the game. It was positive spin, to say the least, particularly when you consider the only save Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka had to make came in stoppage time when he denied Scott Malone.
“We wanted to frustrate them and it worked perfectly,” said Wagner, whose side have failed to score in nine out of the last 12 games. “I’m frustrated because I felt we deserved to take a point from the game and it always hurts when you concede a goal late on.
“I don’t think scoring goals is a problem, it doesn’t make any sense to me to only talk about the last 12 games when it is the whole season that matters. We could score three or four in our next game.”
Sadly for Huddersfield, their names must be added to the at-risk list. There are better teams, with better players, at least on paper, below them in the table. It will take something special to keep them up. In contrast, after a horrible dip in form at the end of last year when talk of a takeover was a self-inflicted distraction, Newcastle have looked relatively assured on their return to the top flight. Benitez’s side have only lost to Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool this year and one more win should be enough to take them to survival.