Breaking the Vicious Cycle

Like the repetitious life Bill Murray’s character fights with in Groundhog Day, the football season gets a tad monotonous this point in the season. For all my teams, any dreams of winning a cup are over so it’s just down to league fixtures. That means every weekend is another round of fixtures – which gets very dull. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting up early on a Saturday morning to catch some European soccer action. However, it’s nice to have something every now and then to spice up the routine. Luckily, the English leagues have mid-week fixtures every now and then to keep things interesting. This week was one of those times, most importantly for me with Newcastle playing Blackburn on Wednesday.

Newcastle United vs. Blackburn Rovers – I only got to check in on the game here and there, but it was a bit of weird one. In the 12^th minute, Newcastle’s Ryan Taylor took a hopeful shot from outside the box that deflected off a Blackburn defender and past the Rovers keeper who had no chance of stopping it. The Magpies were up 1-0 early, but the goal only fair though considering the exact same type of deflected shot saw them ousted from the FA Cup last weekend against Brighton. Fate made things level in the end. (I would’ve liked to see it in Newcastle’s favor for the FA Cup match though.) Anyway, in the remainder of the first half Blackburn would really try to level. They would get an incredible sixteen shots off in the first 45 minutes. One shot of those sixteen was particularly close. In stoppage time of the first half, Blackburn were awarded a penalty kick after a Newcastle foul in the box. Blackburn’s David Dunn took a shot to the bottom corner, but it lacked pace and Toon keeper Tim Krul saved it easily to keep the score 1-0 at the break.

In the second half, Newcastle just had to defend against a Blackburn side that seemed to throw any attack they could toward goal. The Rovers would get ten shots off in the second half for a game total of twenty-six, but nothing had that last final finishing effort. Newcastle though would get one a good finishing of their own however. In the second minute of stoppage time, Gabriel Obertan, who came into the game just three minutes earlier, broke toward goal and hit a nice angled shot from the right side of the 18-yard box. The Toon really didn’t need the extra security at that point in the game, but they would of course take it. It would indeed end with that score, a 2-0 win over Blackburn.

It was a good turnaround match for the Magpies, following the FA Cup defeat last Saturday. It was also a good showing considering they were without Yohan Cabaye in the midfield as he sat out his first match of a three match ban from a misconduct charge in the match against Brighton. They were also still missing leading scorer Demba Ba and new signing Papiss Cisse from the attack as they were still returning from the African Nations Cup. Newcastle move up into 5^th position from 6^th and with that attacking duo returning this weekend, I’m encouraged the Toon will just keep moving up.

Now excuse me. It’s getting late and I have to wake up at 6 am…