Wolves 0-1 Newcastle - Match Reaction

Saturday evening saw Newcastle return to the summit of the championship, having beaten Wolves 1-0 away at Molineux. Brighton’s 4-1 win over Burton meant that Newcastle required a win to return to the top. Overall the game was summed up as being a strong defensive performance, with plaudits being paid to Clark and man of the match Lascelles, who you could say looked about as convincing as a brick wall, a factor that has been questioned in recent weeks.

The only goal of the game came from Mitrovic in a game of few clear cut chances on our behalf, following a tame effort from Colback earlier in the game, those being the stand out chances of the first half. The came as a Shelvey free kick from around the half way mark fizzed around the box, eventually falling to Mitrovic a few yards out, who arguably couldn’t miss, rolling the ball past an already diving Ikeme, just before half time.

Although the goal came at the perfect time, there was a large amount of controversy surrounding Mitrovic as he should have perhaps been sent off following a silly challenge with Wolves’ keeper Ikeme when already on a yellow card, which inadvertently saw Mitrovic taken off at half time, much to the relief of the away fans.

Throughout the due course of the game, again few chances were made by both sides with both sides being well set up and balanced defensively, Wolves’ main opportunity being a Dave Edwards header which on another day would have most likely gone in, there were few other things to mention, as proven by the stats with both teams managing a mere 4 shots on target between them.

The performance in general was a stereotypical away one, defending well and taking your chances when they come and the execution of this was perfect, especially with the set-up of the team in general. Credit must go to Rafa for his team selection and tactics throughout the game, especially the taking off of Mitrovic at half time, to ensure we finished the game with 11 men.

Next up sees us play Norwich away on Tuesday night, a game which should be bigger than what it is at the minute considering how low down the table Norwich are, when we would have been expecting them to be challenging us for the title.

We will also be welcoming back top scorer Dwight Gayle for that game, something for the fans to really look forward to in the hope that he can continue his fine goal scoring form this season.