Newcastle - Crystal Palace: Newcastle United has executed any number of smash-and-grab style results under Steve Bruce, and turnabout is fair play when it comes to Crystal Palace’s 2-1 win at St. James’ Park on Tuesday.
[ MORE: Man United scores nine ]
Jairo Riedewald and Gary Cahill scored four minutes apart for the Eagles after Jonjo Shelvey had put Newcastle up 1-0 early, and Palace hung tough in the face of a 21-6 shot disadvantage up north.
Palace moves onto 29 points, 15 clear of the bottom three, while Newcastle’s 22 is eight ahead of 18th-place Fulham and 10 off 19th-place West Bromwich Albion.
It wasn’t all good news for Palace, who saw star Wilfried Zaha limp off with an injury.
STREAM NEWCASTLE – CRYSTAL PALACE FULL MATCH REPLAY
Three things we learned from Newcastle - Crystal Palace
1. Second half assault fails to take down Palace: Newcastle doesn’t get a lot of shots and rarely wins possession, but the Magpies had 70 percent of the ball in taking 12 of the second half’s 13 shot attempts on Tuesday. They even had the possession in shot edge in the first half, when Palace scored quickfire goals to overcome the hosts’ early goals. Vicente Guaita made four saves and Palace hoofed 17 of its 21 clearances in the second 45 minutes for a gutsy win.
2. Magpies show possibilities: Newcastle’s failed bid to win back-to-back games showed some promise despite Steve Bruce deploying some odd weapons. An already controlling Newcastle saw its vise tighten when Bruce removed below-par Jeff Hendrick for Allan Saint-Maximin. The boss probably waited too long to toss on Andy Carroll, but it’s notable that the normally-conservative boss took off a midfielder and two defenders for three forwards in the second half. They are too talented to be relegated from this crop of PL teams if Bruce puts his best players out there and gives them a plan.
3. Remember me? Gary Cahill’s first Premier League goal since scoring his career-best sixth of the 2016-17 season in a 3-0 Chelsea win over Everton was an unmarked and well-taken header. Since then, Cahill had played in 54 matches across all competitions for Chelsea and another 35 for Palace.
Man of the Match: Jairo Riedewald
Eberechi Eze has a shout here but he’ll have plenty of days in this space and Riedewald, well, what a hit!
Newcastle - Crystal Palace recap
Jonjo Shelvey recorded the fastest goal scored against Palace in more than two decades when he took Callum Wilson’s chested trap of a Ryan Fraser cross and lashed a 23-yard shot through traffic and past Vicente Guaita for 1-0 after 71 seconds.
Palace had an answer from distance in the 21st minute, Riedewald’s vicious shot turning hard off of Javi Manquillo to defy Karl Darlow in the 21st.
The Eagles took the lead in the 25th through Cahill’s header of Eberechi Eze’s 25th minute corner kick.
Fraser struck a loose ball low but into the hands of Guaita at the half-hour mark, starting a run of a half-dozen very good chances for Newcastle to level the score at 2.
Guaita stopped Fraser 1v1, then a slightly-deflected Almiron free kick went over the bar and Schar’s header just missed on the ensuing corner kick. The Swiss back then barely missed the far post with a dragged, low effort from outside the box.
Andros Townsend could’ve put the game to bed with Palace’s only shot attempt of the second half, but Zaha’s replacement missed horribly in front of a wide open goal.
