Newcastle ended their run of home defeats to pick up their first victory of the season against Watford in a 1-0 encounter.
After an unconvincing first-half display, the breakthrough goal came courtesy of Ayoze Perez who glanced a header past Ben Foster to give his side their first three points of the campaign. The result means the Magpies, temporarily at least, hover narrowly above the relegation zone.
Attacking changes have little impact, but eventually, Newcastle’s home form improves
Newcastle have thus far tried a series of different forward options throughout the season, but looked consistently toothless irrespective of who starts in attack; Salomon Rondon returned to the starting line-up against Watford alongside Yoshinori Muto, but the pair were unable to make a significant impact together. Muto had to be substituted due to injury but had a meagre effect prior to his removal from proceedings.
The man who replaced Muto was Ayoze Perez, Newcastle’s longest-serving member of the current squad and last seasons top scorer. Unfortunately, the Spaniard has been distinctly underwhelming in the opening weeks of this season and his exclusion from the starting eleven was justified.
However, just after the hour mark, Perez found space in the opposition area due to poor marking by Issac Success and latched onto a free-kick to steer his header into the back of the Watford net. Relative to the number of chances the visitors had already created, this was a somewhat fortuitous goal.
Gerard Deulofeu impresses
Gerard Delofeu hasn’t been able to live up to the initial potential predicted of him after graduating from Le Masia. However, today the Spaniard showed plenty of promise and was heavily involved in the build-up of the most attacking moves for the away side.
After scoring against Huddersfield Town last weekend Deulofeu was once again impressive, capitalising on the multiple overloads The Hornets created down the left-hand side during the first half. Jose Holebas regularly both over and underlapped past the forward, drawing defenders with him to create space, meaning the Spaniard was able to deliver some threating low crosses. Through no fault of his own, these came to nothing. He did, however, spurn an opportunity to put his side in front and appeared visibly disgusted with himself, perhaps realising the magnitude of the chance he wasted.
Watford guilty of wasted opportunities
Javi Garcia’s side cut through Newcastle at will early on but were guilty of multiple missed opportunities from start to finish. The stat tells the entire story of Watford’s trip to the North-East is 16 shots with only one on target which is a dismal effort from an in-form side.
Early into proceedings, The Hornets dictated play through an effective creation of space, with lovely off the ball movement but were unable to finish any of their multiple opportunities. Arguably one of the best chances fell to Deloufeu who was played through with only Dubravka to beat, only to glance his effort wide of the post.
Throughout the second half, Roberto Pereyra produced a multitude of driving forward runs, usually finished off with angled penetrative passes but Issac Sucess and Deulofeu in front of him were wasteful with their finishing.
Newcastle’s abject style of play
During the first half you could have been mistaken for thinking Newcastle were the away side in this fixture, they were timid and offered very little attacking threat. The Magpies have almost entirely disassociated themselves with the counter-attacking football that served as the catalyst for their mid season resurgance last campaign. There was no concise plan of attack and Watford controlled possession, with incisive movement, dictating the game at will.
The second half brought about a change to this, Newcastle pressed slightly harder and gave Javi Garcia’s side far less room to manoeuvre on the ball, in turn leading to fewer clear opportunities on goal. The decisive goal came from a set piece and was courtesy of poor marking but gives the team a little more breathing space to play their fast-breaking style which was so effective last term.
Injuries could overshadow victory for Newcastle
Three Magpies players picked up injuries in the six minutes after half time; Jamall Lascelles, Yoshinori Muto and Jonjo Shelvey are all critical aspects of the spine of the side, and Rafa Benitez will hope they aren’t missing for long. Lascelles was arguably last season’s stand out performer at St James’ Park, not only captaining the side but organising the defence; his presence will be sorely missed at the back.
Just minutes later Jonjo Shelvey limped off and despite having an accomplished Premier League replacement in Ki Sung-Yueng, the South Korean has scarcely featured thus far this season; indicating his exploits in training are likely not at a standard equal to Shelvey’s. The only positive that should come from this is Ki may now be given an extended run in the side to prove why he gained so many plaudits with The Swans. His assist against the Hornets might have given Benitez reason to believe the midfielder should be included more often.
