Newcastle hosted La Liga’s Rayo Vallecano in a mid-season friendly this afternoon and, thankfully it’s just a friendly so won’t be going down as anything major in the history books.
One thing it will be remembered for is how Newcastle went in at half-time with just a 1-0 lead after facing one of, if not the worst sides ever to grace the hallowed turf at St James’ Park.
Rayo Vallecano posed absolutely zero threat throughout the first half, the only signs of danger they showed came from Newcastle’s mistakes. A bad back pass from Chris Wood in the opening minutes almost resulted in a goal for the visitors but Nick Pope was alert to it and tipped the shot over the bar.
On four minutes, Newcastle took the lead via Sean Longstaff after Jacob Murphy played the ball across to the Geordie midfielder who despatched the shot into the roof of the net. From then on out the first half played out like a training match.
Rayo Vallecano are 8th in La Liga and recently beat Real Madrid, so we know they aren’t a bad side, but they played like they didn’t want to be there. Their passing was awful, often giving possession back to Newcastle. The biggest indicator of the Rayo frame of mind was the number of foul throws taken (and ignored by the ref). Mind, Newcastle weren’t at their best either and were prone to the odd error themselves.
One bright spot was seeing Allan Saint-Maximin having fun again. Every time he got the ball he’d set off one of his trademark runs, often running into a red wall, or on one occasion, being body-slammed by a defender.
The second half picked up where the first left off with Newcastle passing the ball freely and Rayo’s only danger coming from terrible back passes, this time from Lascelles. Just like last time, a couple of minutes after gifting Rayo a chance, Newcastle scored. This time Joe Willock was brought down in the box and Chris Wood stepped up to lash the penalty into the top left corner.
Shortly after the penalty, before the restart, former Magpie Florian Lejeune was brought on by the visitors to a warm applause from the 34,000-strong Toon Army – probably the most noise they made all game.
In keeping with the theme of the day, Rayo scored and the goalscorer was ….. Matt Targett. Sliding in to intercept a cross, the ball came off his shins and rolled into the net. Nothing he could have done about it, but doing that on his return when Big Dan Burn has been keeping you out of the team is going to play on his mind.
Jay Turner-Cooke and Dylan Stephenson came on just after the goal, replacing Jonjo Shelvey and Chris Wood respectively. Stephenson of course fresh off his goal against Al-Hilal.
With 7 minutes to go, young Lewis Miley (16) came on to replace Kieran Trippier with Jacob Murphy moving to right-back to accommodate Miley in midfield.
Without much further incident or fanfare, the match was brought to a close at 2-1. Not a game that will live long in the memory, but that’s not what it was about.