Midfielder Georginio Wijnaldum has said he’s claiming the first goal against Liverpool despite it taking a huge deflection of Martin Skrtel as Newcastle surprised everyone by opening the scoring and then holding on for the three points in the two nil victory.
Speaking to the Official Site following the game, with everyone crediting the strike as an own goal, the summer signing said when asked if it was his.
‘Yeah, of course. I shot on goal. Against Norwich, it was a little bit the same situation – I shot on goal and the ball took a deflection, but I still shot on goal, so I think it’s my goal.’
The incident will keep the Premier League’s goal accreditation panel busy for a bit and no doubt they’ll confirm or deny the strike shortly, but there was no mystery about the second goal of the day as Wijnaldum potentially made it a brace in stoppage time to tie up the win.
‘It was a great ball from Moussa, great sprinting, and it was easy for the goal. I chipped the ball over the keeper – I think that was my only choice – so it was a great finish.’
Whether he gets accreditation for the first goal or not, Gini is Newcastle’s top scorer so far this season and all of his goals have come at St James’ Park.
‘Every game is different. Today, I’m the man who scored two goals but another day, another player will be that man. It’s important that we give each other confidence to perform good. I feel the confidence from the trainers and from my team-mates, so that will give me more confidence to play like this and score goals to help the team. Today, I’m the big man but maybe another week, somebody else will be the big man. We must help each other out to be that kind of man.’
In an interview with Sky Sports, the former PSV Eindhoven player admitted that with heavy defeats to both Leicester City and Crystal Palace, the players had more than deserved the criticism that came their way, but hopefully Liverpool will finally be a turning point for the club.
‘Of course it’s hard, criticism is always hard to get, but a lot of the criticism, to my mind, was right because we didn’t have good performances. You can lose games, but the way we were losing games was really bad because the performance was not good and we didn’t do it as a team. I don’t want to say that everyone wasn’t giving their all – I think everyone did – but we didn’t do it as a team. If everyone plays their own game, then it is difficult to win the game. But we have learnt from that and today, we did it differently. We fought as a team and fought to get the points, and that’s why it’s a big win.’
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