Dominic Scurr reflects on Newcastle United's 3-2 defeat at Chelsea.
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00:00 Newcastle United beaten 3-2 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge tonight. A game Newcastle went into with a bit of confidence buoyed by a 3-0 win against Wolves last weekend.
00:11 Where it was a victory for Eddie Howe's tactical approach to the game and away to a Chelsea side. Changed that up, played on the front foot, tried to peg Chelsea back early on and they did that for about 3-4 minutes.
00:26 Chelsea under real pressure coming into this game, a lot of questions asked about the team, Mauricio Pochettino as well and then first attack, gift Chelsea a goal.
00:39 All that momentum, all that promise going into the game and to be honest the opening few minutes as well just dissipated and from there it made things easy for Chelsea really because they could have really piled on the pressure with an early goal but it was Chelsea who got that and it sort of took the pressure off them.
01:00 From there I thought Newcastle came into the game more and more in the first half where they were largely ok. It was a game not high on quality from either side really bar a couple of decent goals and one of them was Alexander Essacs to equalise just before half time.
01:19 Before that Anthony Gordon went off with an injury which doesn't look too good in the words of Eddie Howe so big blow for him in terms of England but yeah Newcastle got back in the game, clever pass from Bruno, Essac brilliant finish, did nothing else all night but great finish from him.
01:35 Then second half Newcastle had a chance to kick on again but didn't take it and were well off the pace in the second half, more individual errors proving costly. We see Cole Palmer give Chelsea the lead cutting inside on his left foot.
01:53 I say bottom left hand corner, I didn't go right in the corner really. I think Martin de Brouwkaard would be disappointed with that as he would be with the first goal when Nicholas Jackson sort of clips off him, trickles into the net. So yeah disappointing goals for Newcastle to concede tonight.
02:08 And the third one was in some ways the worst of the lot but it was a good individual effort from Mikhailo Mudrik as well. Sven Botman turned far too easily on the halfway line, allows Chelsea to get their attack in the first place and then Fabian Scheer sort of bamboozled if you like by Mudrik who then gets past, breaks the line and then rounds Martin de Brouwkaard to make it 3-1.
02:35 And with that the result is probably beyond doubt though. Newcastle giving half a fighting chance in the closing stages, Jacob Murphy substitutes, sort of charges forward behind me there and absolutely leathers a shot into the net for me.
02:54 From an angle from the edge of the box a great great strike, Jacob Murphy came on and I actually had him in my play over in his hand over in a little bit. I said his service was way off and his service, his delivery into the box was poor all evening after coming on for Anthony Gordon but take nothing away from him with that strike. That was a really really spectacular, well it was a very good strike from Jacob Murphy but didn't make any difference for Newcastle in the end.
03:19 Who lost Anthony Gordon to injury, lost Dan Byrne to injury as well and lost the game. Which against a team in and around you in the Premier League, the defeat feels that bit much, that bit more costly really because not only does it say Chelsea close the gap to just one point with the game in hand, Newcastle are now, if we're going on points per game at least
03:47 and if Chelsea win their game in hand then Newcastle will be in the bottom half of the Premier League which with heading into the final nine games of the season, if they're 11th that's where they finish the first season under Eddie Howe where they failed to win the opening 14 games so the progress argument, it feels like one massive step forward last season and then just quite a few steps back really and Newcastle are sort of back where they started to be
04:16 They started to some degree, in terms of the end of Eddie Howe's first season at least, they made massive strides during that first season but then are sort of back to that and yeah just the consistency of Newcastle United is the issue, the defensive solidarity not there.
04:35 It's the same old problems that, I mean you look at the Villa win, the Wolves win, these have proven to be false stones, as encouraging as they were Newcastle have not built on that, they haven't picked up back to back Premier League wins since they beat Chelsea and Manchester United back in November/December time so yeah it's been a while and that's, if you want to be in and around the European places you need to be putting together more than just back to back wins
05:04 and Newcastle can't even do that at the moment, leaking goals in, ok Stamford Bridge, a ground Newcastle haven't won here since 2012, tough place to come historically but this was a beatable Chelsea side tonight and Newcastle put in, had moments, played ok at times but defensively costly mistakes
05:27 has stopped them picking up a point and lost them ground because a point wouldn't have been an awful result because it keeps Chelsea at arm's length, four points in front of them but yeah, defeat costly and a defeat against a, let's be honest, a bang average Chelsea side who had a couple of good performers tonight in terms of, Mudrick came off the bench and made a good impact with his pace
05:54 and fine individual goal and then Cole Palmer was probably Chelsea's key player tonight so yeah, disappointing for Newcastle United and it doesn't get any easier, it gets much harder in fact with Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter final coming up on Saturday where basically it's looking like make or break for Newcastle's season now, lose that which will be expected particularly after tonight
06:22 then you're starting to clutch at straws as to where the season goes from there, win and then there's still hope for the season but a win feels so so far away at the moment with the way Newcastle are playing and just struggling to put together sequences of good performances and results, it's too inconsistent and that's reflected in their position in the league table
06:49 so as good as there have been at times this season, there's also been quite a lot of lows and the lows have just been creeping in a lot more recently than the highs that we saw maybe in that October time when look, Newcastle were playing three games a week, they were playing Champions League football, travelling away from home, had injuries as well, now Newcastle have had fewer injuries, ok they had two tonight but players coming back, Matt Target came back, end the training more often, they had nine games to prepare for this game
07:18 and nine days to prepare for this game after the Wolves win and yeah for all of three minutes look good and then let in a very poor goal and in and out the game in the first half, probably deserved the equaliser but then second half completely capitulated really for the most part and it was self-inflicted once again so you look back to the defeated Arsenal, it was similar in a lot of ways
07:47 similar in a lot of ways, Chelsea just with a bit less quality in Newcastle, maybe posing a bit more of a threat and being in the game a bit more throughout but ultimately the end result is still another disappointing defeat with three more goals conceded, something Newcastle only did twice in the Premier League last season, conceded three in a 3-3 draw against Manchester City and a 3-0 defeat at Aston Villa, that was throughout all of last season
08:16 Now you can pick far too many, Brighton away at the start of the season, you go to Spurs, Everton, Luton, Nottingham Forest, I won't depress you but you get my point, it's happening far too often Newcastle conceding three or more goals and for a team who were so defensively solid last season
08:42 It's a concern in Fabian Scherr who was excellent against Wolves, back to struggling tonight and Sven Botman who is still really not finding the levels he had prior to his injury and he had another really poor evening tonight, probably a fault for the first goal in particular
09:04 and the second goal did come a little bit from his side, couldn't get the block in for Cole Palmer's shot and then he was turned for the third goal so yeah another night to forget in the capital for Sven Botman and a night to forget for Newcastle United in some ways although speaking to Eddie Howe after the game he did say he thought his side played well apart from the mistakes but the mistakes proved costly
09:31 and Newcastle now have to try and bounce back in their FA Cup against Manchester City but then after that it's another tough game against the side in and around them in the league table, West Ham United at St James' Park so the importance of that game just becomes that turned up just a little bit more because they really need to win that game if they have a realistic chance of getting into or getting in contention
09:59 for those European places which will be the sort of minimum expectation for Newcastle United this season given the highs they reached last season.