INSTANT REACTION: Newcastle United 3 - 0 Hull City

12 months from now, most people will look back at the story of the 2014-15 Premier League season and judge this match purely on the scoreline, and it will benefit from this fact.  Although Newcastle were marginally the better side on the day, the match was poor overall, fraught with long balls poor fouls and misplaced passes.  None of this will matter at all to John Carver as he earns his first three points of this current stint as caretaker manager.

Hull City were taking the match directly at Newcastle from the start and created the very first chance of the match straight away and really should have been 1-0 up within minutes.  As was the order of the day, poor final balls and poor finishing would undo Hull when they were (quite frequently) able to get themselves in behind the Newcastle defense and so it would stay 0-0.  The less said about the next 35 minutes of the match or so the better as the two sides took turns winning a match of "who can be the worst team on the pitch"... but then things would blow up in huge fashion.

Newcastle United would make the breakthrough on 40 minutes thanks to a misplaced pass by a Hull defender coupled with a heads-up play by rejuvenated (juvenated in the first place?) Remy Cabella who performed a FIFA-esque sweep to the side and struck beautifully, the ball curving away from Alan McGregor and just inside the right post to put Newcastle up – perhaps undeservedly as neither team deserved to be ahead – 1-0.  Good feelings for Newcastle fans would be short lived as Sammy Ameobi would give up a poor foul on the right wing about 18 yards from Tim Krul's goal and the resulting free kick ended up in the Newcastle net.  Ahmed Elmohamady got on the end of the cross before using his left hand to knock the ball past Krul and it was truly spotted by the linesman who called the goal off.

Newcastle United came out from halftime and were the better side although they would still depend on Hull to be their own worst enemies as another turnover would lead to Sammy Ameobi's second which Alan McGregor would likely want to have a second chance at as he was beat from 30 yards out by our favorite Ameobi while Newcastle's third would come from inspired sub Yoan Gouffran who was thrown on late in the match and returned the favor with his second goal in two matches, this time getting the benefit of a deflection off of Elmohamady who will want to forget this particular match in short order.

Perhaps the three points going to Newcastle was about right, but the 3-0 final was perhaps a little flattering to Carver's men... but there were positives.  Ayoze Perez continues to work his pants off even as he continues to be employed as a solitary striker.  Remy Cabella has continued to look resurgent and may yet justify his transfer fee.  Vurnon Anita put in probably about 50 good minutes today.  Perhaps the Dubai training camp has allowed Carver and the squad to get fully in sync and we have truly turned a corner after a rough January, although the club will have to be better in future matches in order to keep things moving in the right direction.