Newcastle United ended the winning streak of Liverpool with a narrow 2-0 victory at St James’ Park in the only English Premier League fixture on Sunday.
Advertisement
However, Sturridge, playing in only his fifth Premier League game of the season after injury, wasted a good chance to equalize and Moreno was denied a wonderful volley from an angle. If you rotate, sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. It may have been a case of jumping before he was pushed, but with a very important win under their belts, McClaren and Newcastle can build upon this as their relegation battle begins to heat up.
“A few days ago we were were brilliant”.
In truth though, we didn’t deserve anything from today. “That’s the way it can go”.
The Magpies, previously with just one win in their last five – including a 5-1 thrashing at Crystal Palace last weekend – are now level on points with Bournemouth and Norwich City on 13 points.
“I didn’t say we were title contenders before, so why should I explain now why we are not?”. We thought that we had enough to get the win, but we’re a group in training and we’ll work harder to get the win the next game.
Not that we witnessed too much of the energy and intensity that has typified Liverpool’s dramatic improvement under the former Borussia Dortmund manager. “That’s what we need every week”.
Dejan Lovren then wasted two late chances to equalise, first heading wide a comer from Milner, before forcing a save out of Rob Elliot with his header from Moreno’s cross. The hosts’ first corner produced a chance a minute later, with Chancel Mbemba rising high but heading just over the bar.
The second-half introduction of both Sturridge and Adam Lallana did improve the Reds, they were below-par throughout and eventually Georginio Wijnaldum opened the scoring.
McClaren countered by introducing Ayoze Perez for Siem de Jong in the 67th minute and two minutes later, his side were in front.
Newcastle took the lead after 69 minutes when Moussa Sissoko’s cross was slightly mis-controlled by Wijnaldum but he still managed to fire in a shot that Skrtel deflected in.
Klopp threw on Origi for Ibe, realigning the strike-force that had torpedoed Southampton, but they could not reverse the visitors’ fate.
Advertisement
Steve McClaren revealed he considered dropping the whole Newcastle United side for Sunday’s match against Liverpool in response to the team’s poor form.
