Newcastle made it four games unbeaten and two wins in a row yesterday, demolishing a self-destructive Brentford at St James’ Park.
The Bees were the architects of their own downfall with David Raya and Ethan Pinnock seemingly determined to gift Newcastle the three points on their Takeover Anniversary weekend.
It did look as though Newcastle would have won comfortably without Brentford’s help, but a 5-1 win means that the Magpies have now scored 9 goals in the last two games which should be sending out a message to the rest of the League – we’re here to compete!
Speaking to NUFC TV after the game, Bruno Guimaraes was full of praise for Eddie Howe for coaching him on the art of goalscoring headers and especially thankful to his hairdresser: “It was good to turn out for this one and get my first goal of the season. I am proud and I need to keep going, this is just the beginning.
“When I arrived here (Eddie Howe) told me ‘I watched your DVD and you never score with your head, I will work with you and you will score with your head’ and after this I already scored two goals, so I thank the gaffer, you are very important in my life.
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Talking about his new bleached look, Guimaraes laughed: “I will keep the blonde. When I’m blonde I score”
In his post-match interview with NUFC TV, Eddie Howe was clearly delighted with the lads, saying: “(I’m) very, very pleased with everything I saw, really. I thought the players gave everything again, I thought the crowd were incredible for us when we needed them to be.
When he was informed of Bruno’s praise and thanks for his heading coaching, Howe laughed, saying: “I have to laugh at that. Bruno is very kind. I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s something we’ve overly worked on with him, but, I’ll take it.”
Howe was also very quick to give credit to Jason Tindall and the coaching staff for their work on set plays which played a huge role in the win. The corner routine that provided the first goal was extremely well worked, but that was just one of several set plays that were clearly well-rehearsed on the training pitch. This seems to be adding a new dynamic to Newcastle’s game and makes us even more of a threat from dead-ball situations than we already were with Trippier standing over the ball.
Newcastle find themselves in fifth place in the league following this win and the anxiety from the run of draws is clearly lifting, especially when you look at the fact that we’ve still only got one defeat to our name this season and that one was extremely contentious.
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