On Saturday the 26th of August, Newcastle ended their premiership goal scoring/point drought when they beat West Ham United by three goals to nil
West Ham were pretty much dominated throughout the match. With their reign of possession being about 10 minutes out of the 90 at most. This win has given Newcastle the points and confidence that they needed to get them off the mark, but for West Ham United, the pressure has increased; especially on manager Slaven Bilić after yet another poor West Ham performance that leaves them rock bottom of the table with a -8 goal difference. Newcastle, however jumped up to 14th place in the table.
The toon were pretty much always in control of the game, starting from just 2 minutes in when a long ball found Joselu, who could've ran into the box, but he was penalized for handball
Not long after, an on-target Isaac Hayden cross found Joselu again who unfortunately smashed the ball the opposite way of the goal. The signs were obvious that this wasn't going to be like the Huddersfield game.
Other short Newcastle attacks/chances in the first half hour included Manquillo's cross almost going into the top left corner of the net, Perez's poor touch ending hopes of a goal after Joselu picked him out and Isaac Hayden almost scoring from outside the box seconds after a penalty appeal went ignored.
West Ham, like a lot of premiership teams, seemed to resort to diving and faking injuries to get by. Including when Andre Ayew basically lay on the ground for 4 minutes for the sole purpose of getting his shirt changed before running back on and playing for another 44 minutes.
The foul caused the flow of the game to change and West Ham had a few attempts although not a single of them from that period were on target. Ayew, Cresswell and Antonio all saw their efforts go either high or wide.
West Ham's VERY short reign came to an abrupt end on the 36th minute when Mikel Merino played a beautiful long ball to Atsu before he crossed it into a pouncing Joselu, the Spaniard scored his first goal in a Newcastle shirt as he stroked it into an empty net to make it 1-0 to Newcastle
Early in the second half West Ham could've changed the game by equalizing when Rob Elliot did a Matz Sels-esque slap right to the feet of Javier Hernandez who should've smashed the ball into the top right, but instead his shot was quite weak and deflected off Elliot again before Ciaran Clark heroically saved it off the line.
We had plenty of chances ourselves to make it 2-0 like when Matt Ritchie took a shot from the right hand side of goal which deflected out to Joselu, he would've smashed it home for his second put he slid into the ball with the wrong foot and it was cleared away by James Collins.
9 Minutes later Joselu recieved a standing ovation from the geordie fans as Rafa Benitez replaced him for Aleksander Mitrovic 3 days after the substitute scored against Nottingham Forrest.
Moments after a Newcastle free kick faded away, Matt Ritchie worked to get the ball in the corner before playing off a lovely one-two with Hayden and crossing it in perfectly to the head of Ciaran Clark who scored his 4th goal in a Newcastle shirt.
On the 82nd minute Mo Diame came on for Isaac Hayden who had a brilliant game,
Newcastle finished the job when Ayoze Perez pierced the West Ham defense completely and played in Aleksander Mitrovic who put Joe Hart on the floor as he ran around him to score the third goal of the game. Job Done.
2 Minutes later Matt Ritchie came off for Jacob Murphy.
This game gave everyone who is involved with Newcastle a huge sigh of relief and confidence for the rest of the season. The next Newcastle game is after an international break when we play Swansea City on the 10th of September at 4:00 PM. The last time Newcastle were in Wales they won 2-0 against Cardiff City, I'm sure all Newcastle fans will be hoping to replicate that kind of performance when the Swansea game comes.