This was huge – Newcastle 4 Nottingham Forest 3

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The Mag

·24 de febrero de 2025

This was huge – Newcastle 4 Nottingham Forest 3

Right, I need to get a couple of things off my chest before I even start on this game.

This team we were playing today are Nottingham Forest, not Forest, that’s something you should have outgrown in year two when you did Robin Hood, and not Notts Forest either.

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Notts is the team over the river, the abbreviation of Nottingham is Nottm.

So let’s just absorb information as it’s offered before we all end up voting in grifters who want your tiny modicum of money for their fellow billionaires. Nottm Forest.

Since their return to the Premier League we have beaten Nottm Forest (see it’s not hard) five out of six times (if you include the league cup win on penalties, which I do, and if you’d like to argue, put your counter-view in your own established online column) yet the hand wringing pant-wetting noisy element of Newcastle’s support that exists largely on the internet, seems only capable of remembering the Boxing Day slop show where Chris Wood scored a hat-trick, to the extent that I can no longer be in public any more when Chris Wood’s name is mentioned, such is the inevitably that someone will try and tell me how he scored a hat-trick against us (usually supplemented by the wrong score, wrong context and a total disregard for the fine job Chris Wood did for a Newcastle team that desperately needed his solid contribution).

All of this external nonsense fazed me not, as I felt assured that a single game in a fifteen day period was recuperation enough for United to gather themselves and secure an essential win against an opponent that was a surprising interloper into the Champions League conversation, but an utterly deserving one. I love what you’re doing lads but you’re in our seat and we’re gonna have to ask you to jog along.

The suggestion of an injury to Tonali keeping him out proved to have some semblance of ghastly truth. T’wernt too horrid though, as Sandro was at least on the bench, which suggests he’s alreet overall, but one can’t be too careful with some big big weeks ahead.

After only one game in fifteen days, an admittedly dreadful performance against what we must equally accept is the four-times champions, United started looking suitably refreshed. They seemed on it for all of five minutes, with Forest mere bystanders until a shocking occurrence transpired, whereby Murphy received Livramento’s throw-in deep in his own half and decided to gallop horizontally across the pitch. Hudson-Odoi dispossessed him and with Pope caught out over seemingly too far to his left, the Forest man picked his spot inside the opposite post. Stunned, and a moment of importance.

This is where a massive factor comes in about being Newcastle United. Many fans I’ve seen spew bile online in the name of the club, often while demanding tickets on the other hand, would be incandescent at the suggestion of some other, allegedly inferior team taking the lead on our ground. The people in the stadium, fortunately, are made of better stuff, and after a moment of slight shell shock, the noise continued in support of Eddie and the lads. I don’t think you can understate this. Jacob Murphy dropped a few clangers as he tried too hard to compensate for his error and I genuinely believe that had the crowd turned, he wouldn’t have had it in him to be there to score (spoiler alert) the crucial second.

As it was, the crowd in the ground kept phones in their pockets and made the event more about willing Newcastle to do better, not about themselves bruv. The team were allowed the time and space to regain their earlier composure. Murphy broke on the right but his cross was smashed across, narrowly in front of Isak, when a floated effort would have seen Newcastle outnumbering the defenders in the box. A lovely link-up between Murphy and Livramento saw Tino send a lovely ball over that Anthony Gordon should surely have knocked into the gaping goal. Encouraging pressing, worrying lack of cutting edge.

You’d think the ask here would be an experienced head to settle things, put his foot on the ball and get us back in the game. Bang wrong.

Hall’s free kick went deep to Bruno, who headed it invitingly back across the loaded box. Everyone panicked and Burn and Isak both failed to get on the end of it. Willock did well to collect and return to Hall to start again, and his slightly aimless centre found Lewis Miley, who controlled it and picked his spot in the corner, showing the old timers how it’s done.

The actions of the young Geordie spurred his senior partners into life and the next ten minutes were the best of the game by a fair old margin. It took less than two before United secured a lead that was not to be surrendered, as Gordon’s ball down the left to Isak saw the Swede produce a flick of such filth I am unable to describe it any further for fear of sponsors disassociating themselves with The Mag, so suffice to say it REDACTED it’s way to Hall, whose cross took a looped deflection over Sels to the back post where Murphy sort of ploughed his entire self at the ball to usher it into the net in a fashion reminiscent of those tuppenny falls things you get at the arcade.

We all thought that had escalated quickly but matters should have accelerated at an even pacier velocity were it not for some cowardly refereeing. I’m not one to scream for penalties but Anthony Gordon’s cross attempt was blocked by Aina in a fashion that could be best described as spreadeagled. Were he to have attempted some kind of hide-in-the-wardrobe prank, or jumped around the corner as part of some Halloween trick or treat fun, or been American, he could not have thrust his arms up and about in a more unnecessary, extensive and elaborate fashion. From my seat in the corner behind him I could clearly hear him shouting “Whasssuppp” in both a nostalgic nineties throwback and a clear admission of guilt. It was hands up, in the box, preventing the passage of the ball. It was a penalty, a clear penalty and more clear a penalty you will not see until whenever the next time is you watch the football league highlights. Yet for some reason the ref chose to hide and let the VAR dispense justice, creating an unnecessary delay that ended up causing a seven minute lag for me getting a half time bevvy. Isak notched the penna despite the keeper sort of half saving it behind the line, we’ll have that.

I have to admit it’s fuzzy at time of writing but it feels like the next goal came straight from Forest’s kick off. Hall sent Willock away on the left and he played Isak in. The league’s best striker steamed in and got his shot away, with a deflection taking it over the dove of Sels. Sels looked a lot like the keeper we discarded for Karl Darlow some nine years back and United looked a lot like the team we all suspected would qualify for the Champions League and win some cups as well. As 4-1 at half time was beyond everyone’s expectations and I made some hefty predictions as to what sort of score this could end up like.

The second half was not good.

That’s without question. What baffles me in the right here and now is how so many people seem to consider this poor second period to be a bigger negative than the stunning preceding half that saw us secure a double over the third placed side in the league who have only lost five games to everyone else apart from us.

In summary, it feels like United were caught out between steaming forward for a cricket score, or keeping something back for the battles ahead. Schar headed against the post early in the half but this was followed by a whole load of nothing, until we made the mistake of warmly applauding Elliott Anderson as he came to take a corner. Buoyed by this vote of confidence, he smartly despatched the delivery for Milenkovic to make it 4-2. Half an hour to go, we can see this out.

United looked fragile for that half hour and no mistake. Tonali and Barnes for Willock and Murphy should have offered freshness and steel but Forest seemed to consistently get a grip. Bruno, Schar, Burn and Livramento all seemed to look frazzled. The sight of the injury time board was eagerly awaited, but it was tainted by Yates finding it way too easy to make it 4-3 from another corner, with ten seconds to play.

A mere three minutes felt easy but there was still abject terror as Forest appealed for a penalty, with the referee’s dismissive signal for a goal kick creating palpitations in my seat. It wasn’t though and we won like.

This was huge. I expect the sort of people that would have booed us into submission at 0-1 to shout loud on the internet when we inevitably don’t win at Anfield on Wednesday. Personally, I’d gladly sacrifice that game if it keeps personnel, tactics and routines in the back pocket while we assess the oppo for a far more valuable win in London some three weeks hence. The spectre of that game may well loom large when we visit West Ham in our final game before Wembley.

This game looks after all of that. We sit fifth, level on points with Man City who are fourth and three behind Forest. I can categorically tell you that there are twenty points on the table after the international break next month and that will secure us Champions League. If you don’t believe me, there’s fixture lists all over the web, draw your own conclusions.

The focus for the coming weeks has to be cup progress and cup liftery, with hopefully a couple of points chucked into the European charge total. If we don’t get those points, you’re embarrassing yourself and the club by screaming and shouting, in the same way as focussing on the disjointed second half today is offensive to the effort involved in winning a top five six-pointer.

This was a big one today, 13 wins out of the last 16 and everything is still on. Let’s keep a bit of faith eh?

Newcastle 4 Nottingham Forest 3 – Sunday 23 February 2025 2pm

(Stats via BBC Sport)

Miley 23, Murphy 25, Isak 33 pen, 34

Hudson-Odoi 6, Milenkovic 63, Yates 90

Possession was Newcastle 57% Forest 43%

Total shots were Newcastle 13 Forest 17

Shots on target were Newcastle 5 Forest 5

Corners were Newcastle 7 Forest 6

Touches in the box Newcastle 34 Forest 26

You can follow the author on BlueSky @bigjimwinsalot.bsky.social

(Newcastle 4 Nottingham Forest 3 – Match ratings and comments on all Newcastle United players – Read HERE)