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Match Report By
Gaz
Pearson (28 October 2005)
That said, it was Big Al who had the last laugh as his low drive on 80 minutes proved to be the winning strike in a professional display from the lads. After the Derby Day heroics Souness opted to make some changes to his side to face the dangerous Grimsby team, who had already seen of Spurs in the previous round. In came Babayaro at left-back and Peter Ramage was swapped to right-back replacing Stephen Carr. Souey opted to bench the low-in-confidence Jean Alain Boumsong in favour of Titus Bramble. No surprises in those changes then. But this is Newcastle and Graeme Souness we are talking about. In midfield the Scot opted to rest Derby Day Hero, Emre, which all considering was fair enough... but he replaced him with Amdy Faye! Well we may be thin on the ground in midfield but I would have thought Keiron Dyer (not risked because of the pitch... which is a joke, its grass and has goalposts either end Keiron!) would have been given a run out over Faye or even bring in Nobby to the centre and give a young lad like Martin Brittain a chance. Arsenal's kids showed the class they have against the Mackems on tuesday, isn't it about time ours had the chance to do the same? I am not talking about wholesale changes here, just the odd lad given a chance to shine... but Faye is Souness' player after all I guess and if he does win this competition... which he now has a semi-decent chance of doing, then he will want to win it with his team. Shola Ameobi mysteriously pulled out injured, citing once again a hamstring problem. Look fellas this is getting a bit beyond a joke and either you bring in someone who can deal with this properly or change something you're doing in training because this is getting ridiculous... the players dont seem to be able to walk out on to the pitch these days without feeling a twinge in their hamstring. On a plus note, the man with the patience of a saint, Michael Chopra was handed his first start of the season - and he did well enough. Indeed it was the Gosforth born striker whose clever reverse pass delightfully set up his fellow Gossie born Alan Shearer who rifled in a low drive - with his left peg I may add - into the Grimsby net. All in all Newcastle, high on confidence following our win over he Mackems on Sunday, controlled the game reasonably well. Although Grimsby showed a lot of spirit and it was easy to see how they knocked Spurs out. Some good displays from Stephen Taylor at the back and Zoggy who was unlucky to see his shot rebound off the post in the first half, gave Souness a few plusses from this game. However, the night belonged to one incident, what I term, the "Whittle Elbow". After an earlier skirmish where Shearer appeared to have caught, accidentally in my opinion, Whittle in the face with his own elbow, the Mariner defender decided to get his own back. Shearer and Whittle both jumped up for the ball, only for Whittle to smash Shearer in the face causing the former England striker extensive damage to his mouth, needing several stitches. The intent in this challenge alone should have meant this was an automatic red-card - the referee, Mark Halsey - 5 yards away, gave nothing! Abysmal elbow, awful decision from the officials... how many more times are we going to say that this season! In the fallout from this Carling Cup victory the press and media have jumped all over the comments Shearer made after the match. The No.9 said he wanted to get even with Whittle for his elbow. For damn-sake who the hell wouldn't! If that elbow was in a park game or even a women's game then there would have been a fight, followed by a riot - and that's another point, was it just me or did the other Newcastle players not seem to jump to Shearer's aid... not that he needs help but if I was Al I wouldn't have minded the back up of some of the big lads like Taylor and Bramble! Come on lads, if we go to war don't leave your leader stranded. Back to the media, like I was saying, they jumped all over these comments and even suggested that Shearer should be punished for them! The hypocrisy of it all bewilders me... where the hell is freedom of speech these days, Oh yeah right I forgot, there isn't any. The fact that Whittle refuses to apologise almost confounds his guilt. There should be only one person that the FA should be looking to punish, no make that two, Whittle and Halsey. The bottom line is we escaped Blundell Park with a valuable 1-0 win and with Chelsea knocked out of the competition, Liverpool bombed out at Palace, there is realistically only Arsenal and Man Utd the real stumbling blocks... and even then they are beatable. This is there for the taking provided we get a nice home draw in the next round. Fingers crossed for Doncaster but to be honest if you want to win things you have to beat the best so bring on Highbury and Old Trafford if that's who we get paired against. For once the doom and gloom has left Tyneside so far this week. West Brom at the weekend, time for some icing on the cake. Let's also hope that the refereeing display won't leave us in raptures of stitches or Big Al for that matter.
Lineups & Match Stats
United: Given, Ramage, Taylor, Bramble, Babayaro, Solano (Clark 72), Faye (Brittain 72), Parker, N'Zogbia, Shearer, Chopra. Subs not used: Elliott, Boumsong, Caig. Booked: Clark. Goals: Shearer 80. Att: 9,311. Ref: Mark Halsey (Lancashire).
Post-Match Reaction: Newcastle
"I didn't see the incident at the time but I saw it with the benefit of the TV replay and it was not a good challenge. "He is entitled to be angry. I don't know what defenders think they are going to achieve by doing that to him because he was always going to come back (and score)."
"He has done me, it was blatant. The referee was five yards away and he did nothing.'"
Post-Match Reaction: Grimsby
"Alan Shearer is a very competitive player and always has been, and so is my centre-half. So on such occasions particularly in cup ties you can sometimes get a very bruising battle and that's what it appeared to be tonight. "I'm very proud of my players in terms of their work ethic and application and I thought we weathered the first 25 minutes very well. "It was taking the shape of the last tie against Spurs, it was a tight affair and we were waiting for our one window of opportunity to come along." |
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Match Report: Grimsby Town 0-1 Newcastle United
