Newcastle Win 5-3 on penalties!
Despite a performance he’ll want to forget overall, Joey Barton shrugged off a late penalty miss in normal time, to confidently steer home the winning penalty in a shoot-out for the Teresa Herrera trophy.
Starting with a fairly strong first eleven, Newcastle went toe-to-toe with their hosts, looking to become the first English side to triumph in the long-running contest. And with few chances on either side in the first half, Andy Carroll came closest with a powerful header which went agonisingly wide.
At the other end, the Newcastle defence dealt reasonably comfortably with most of what Deportivo could offer. And although the Spanish side did hit the post with a well worked effort, everything else was fairly speculative.
Hughton made a number of changes at half-time with Kevin Nolan, on for Guthrie, notably ruffling some feathers and earning himself a yellow card for retaliation. Gutierrez came on for Xisco on the left, who had a quiet game on his return to his old club. But the Argentine didn’t exactly set the world on fire himself.
With the game petering out to a stalemate, Coloccini was fouled by the Deportivo keeper and the referee pointed to the spot. Up stepped Barton, looking a parody of himself, inexplicably sporting an unconvincing moustache. And with all the composure in the world, he stepped up to first tamely side foot the penalty into the keeper and then blaze the rebound high and wide.
And so on to penalties and much to the amazement of the cynical Magpie followers, a ruthless combination of spot-kicks from Lovenkrands, Nolan, Carroll, Ryan Taylor and the previous penalty villain Barton, saw off the challenge as the club picked up it’s second trophy in a matter of months. Cue wild celebrations on Tyneside and around the globe.
Another decent run out in terms of fitness and a chance for supporters to see what shape we’re in. James Tavernier looked sharp and capable on another rare outing for the senior squad and some nervous touches aside, there have been worst performances than that of the man he replaced, James Perch. Ryan Taylor perhaps proving again that while he can deliver a quality ball, a defender he is not. Other than that, Carroll looked enthusiastic if a little sluggish. Coloccini and Enrique were miles above anybody else in a Newcastle shirt but overall it wasn’t the worst game in the world.
So not the worst world game in the world but for anyone unfortunate enough to experience any of the online commentary during streamed footage, let’s not even go there…
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