Rondon proves worth with priceless winner for Newcastle
Rafael Benitez’s name does not scan with “someone special”, but the travelling Newcastle support’s reworked version of Wham’s Last Christmas still made clear to whom they have given their heart.
Festive feelings have been thin on the ground at St James’ Park; the players cancelled a planned Christmas party in London this weekend after a slump in form had dragged them back towards relegation trouble, while Benitez’s annual appeal to owner Mike Ashley for a bit of January spending money has brought no response yet.
Newcastle have a squad barely suited to Premier League purpose and an owner the fans want gone but they have their spirit. They also have Salomon Rondon.
Few strikers in the English top flight play as thankless a role as the Venezuelan, a man so isolated he often gives the impression of auditioning for the latest film in the Home Alone franchise. His work ethic cannot be faulted, though, and on this occasion, it brought reward with a priceless goal that sent relegation rivals Huddersfield to a fourth successive defeat.
It was the sort of steel that Benitez wants. “I said so many times that this group of players deserves credit, and today, they came together and worked hard,” he said. “We gave the ball away a little bit in the first half, but in the second half we were better organised. The idea was to exploit them on the counter-attack and exploit the space behind them. Against a team so close to us in the table, and to get three points, it was a good achievement.”
It was one of those days for gritting teeth and getting on with it. Even the floodlights seemed to be having second thoughts about hanging on for the full match, flickering and dimming twice in the first half before returning to full beam. The match ball failed to last the duration, having to be replaced in the second half after a puncture.
In appalling weather in West Yorkshire, Newcastle demonstrated plenty of commitment, occasionally to excess, captain Jamaal Lascelles getting only a yellow card for a waist-high challenge that propelled a shocked Laurent Depoitre on to the perimeter track.
Defensive discipline, apart from Lascelles’s moment of madness, saw them through a testing first half, in which Huddersfield enjoyed plenty of the ball, while only threatening Martin Dubravka a couple of times. The visiting goalkeeper tipped over Philip Billing’s free-kick and pushed away a Chris Lowe shot with Florent Hadergjonaj offside as he tried to follow in.
Newcastle created a couple of firsthalf openings of their own, with goalkeeper Jonas Lossl blocking after Christian Atsu cut in from the left behind the snoozing Juninho Bacuna, then getting in the way after Fabian Schar beat the offside trap from a Ki Sung-yueng chip.
Lossl could do nothing to prevent Newcastle taking the lead 10 minutes into the second half. Schar knocked on an Ayoze Perez pass to Javier Manquillo who crossed low for the unmarked Rondon to sweep in from eight yards. The home side struggled to respond. Without a player who can provide key goals in the way Rondon does, their winter will be a long one.
Head coach David Wagner said: “It is not easy to keep believing when you have so many narrow defeats, but my part is to keep everyone’s heads held high.”
Huddersfield (3-5-1-1) Lossl 6; Jorgensen 6, Schindler 6, Kongolo 6 (Sobhi 60); Hadergjonaj 6, Bacuna 5, Hogg 6 (Mbenza 76), Billing 7, Lowe 6 (Durm 60); Pritchard 4; Depoitre 5. Subs Hamer (g), Stankovic, Kachunga, Quaner. Booked Hogg. Newcastle (3-5-1-1) Dubravka 6; Schar 7, Lascelles 6, Clark 6; Manquillo 7, Diame 6, Ki 6 (Hayden 72), Atsu 6, Kenedy 5 (Dummett 89); Perez 5; Rondon 7 (Ritchie 81). Subs Woodman (g), Murphy, Muto, Joselu. Booked Lascelles. Referee Anthony Taylor (Greater Manchester).