Newcastle 4-3 Norwich - Reaction

So, in the space of 60 seconds, we’ve been sent from sick of our lives, to out of our minds in euphoria.

Newcastle United.

It started off with what sounded like a complete onslaught from Newcastle, with Gayle having around 3 chances before he managed to stick it into the back of the net. I’m not going to lie, it’s worrying that we need to so many chances to score. We need to punish teams while we’re on top, and unfortunately we’ve not been very good at that for some time.

Eventually though, we did score, with Ritchie crossing for Gayle to tap home. We deserved it no doubt, we’d be all over them. Then, however, the dreading half time whistle approached, and once again, we switched off and gave away a penalty. Looking at it now, it does seem that Gouffran did actually get his foot on the ball before pulling their player over, he was all over him though, and we’ve seen that these referees in this league do not need an excuse to make a dodgy decision.

Half time, and a familiar feeling of our missed chances coming back to haunt us. 10 minutes back on the pitch and we were 2-1 down, and then 3-1 down. I lost a bit of faith at this point, same old Newcastle United cropped up, but then Shelvey decided to pick out an incredible pass for Gayle to bring it back to 3-2 within a couple of minutes. What happened next was quite unbelievable.

Six minutes of added time. We’re pushing, Norwich are sat back more than happy with their one goal lead. We seem to be out of ideas, we’re trying, but nothing is happening for us. Fifth minute of added time. Yedlin, to Gouffran, goal. At this point I was more than happy to snatch a point from what looked a certain defeat, but that wasn’t quite enough for us. 60 seconds later and Gayle somehow scuffed a shot into the bottom corner. From 3-2 down in the 94th, to 4-3 up in the 96th. Madness.

As far as performances go, Ritchie seems to be our stand out player as per usual, with Shelvey popping up every so often with a bit of magic. Gayle seems isolated without a strike partner, with Mitrovic coming on, he sounded more useful. The defence needs a bit of work, I’d prefer a more regular partnership in the middle, but I can’t tell Rafa what to do, he’s the one with the coaching badges, remember. Diame seems a passenger, and Colback is just Colback, useless.

4-3 is too insane to be looking at negatives right now though. We’re Newcastle, and we’re gonna win the league. Maybe.