Newcastle 2-0 Manchester United - Match Report: No time wasted

Newcastle United hosted Manchester United at St James’ Park on Sunday and the lads wasted no time in defeating Erik ten Hag’s minions running them out of the park with a resounding 2-0 victory.

Joe Willock kept up his impressive run of form, opening the score, while super-reserve Callum Wilson added the second and final goal coming off the pine. Newcastle closed the gameday tied on points with Man Utd but above the Mancunians for 3rd in the Premier League standings on goal difference.

A victory or a draw by the managerless Tottenham in their game on Monday against Everton would see them go third/fourth with Man Red falling off the Champions League qualification places.

It took 65 for the Magpies to break through, but the men in black and white stripes dominated this one wire to wire. Willock headed home the first goal after a delightful ball from Bruno found Allan Saint-Maximin on the verge of the pitch for the Frenchman to head-assist Willock’s effort.

Alexander Isak couldn’t add his name to the scoreboard but his substitute on Sunday, England international Callum Wilson, bagged an 88th-minute decider.

Feels good when there is competition for minutes, places, opportunities, and so on. Feels even better when you hit Man Utd in the mouth and overtake them in the standings in what could be a Newcastle-above-ManU type of campaign for the first time since 1977.

Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images

It is funny to think things could have been completely different when those watching at home listened to something coming out of the speakers of SJP and assumed Eddie Howe had pulled the trigger making three substitutions on a single window. Turned out we were all wrong.

It was just the speaker announcing the presence of 52,268 living souls. Those watching live on location and from their tablets on streaming services went on to enjoy a 0-0 deadlock turn into a 1-0 shortly after that, and eventually a magnificent 2-0 victory by those playing home.

Newcastle sits in third with 50 points, already more than they could earn last season even though there are still 11 more games and 33 points left and up for grabs. Man Utd stayed put at 50 pops themselves, only dropping to the fourth place in the standings on goal difference (4) compared to Newcastle’s (22).

Ten Hag couldn’t have said it better when he acknowledged Newcastle “were better today.” The Mancunian coach knows the Magpies “wanted to win more, so they won.”

After all of the crap Manchester’s coach talked about Newcastle ahead of the Carabao Cup final—which, it must be said, worked to some extent and messed with Howe’s plans—he ate a good one on Sunday losing by two goals against a much better team that gave his squad no option from zero to ninety.

We just have one thing to say:

Howay!