Main Page

Quick Links
    Fixtures
   Reports
   Players
   Transfers
   Rumours
   Table
   Stats
   Reserves
   Academy

The Rest
    Archives
   Club info
   Fanzines
   Last Season
   SJP
   Unlikely Lads
   A-Z Index

Newcastle United	6 - 1	Aston Villa
Half time:	4 - 0
Score Sheet:
LuaLua (24) LuaLua (37)  Coppinger (40)   Kerr (45)  Jackman og (47) Chopra (86)		Melaugh (83)
	Teams
Harper Griffin Quinn G.Caldwell Distin Green Kerr LuaLua McClen Coppinger Bernard		Peter Enckelman Jonathan Bewers Danny Jackman Olof Mellberg Liam Ridgewell Michael Husbands Jay Smith Steve Stone Peter Hynes Gavin Melaugh Ian Taylor
Substitutes:
Mark Boyd for Quinn (14) Michael Chopra for LuaLua (65) McMenamin for Coppinger (46)		Robert Edwards for Mellberg (41) Danny Haynes for Smith (64)
Subs not used:
Jon Brain David Cowan		Boaz Myhill Liam Folds Lee McGuire
Bookings:
n/a		Mellberg (9) kicking ball away Enckelman (55) foul on LuaLua
Referee: D.Foster - good advantage played more than once
Attendance:  977

24 mins LuaLua opened the scoring after 24 minutes at the Airport End with a left-footed shot from the edge of the box, that Enckleman let through his hands. 1-0 

37 mins United doubled their lead when Stuart Green's shot was parried and LuaLua was on hand to knock in the rebound. McClen and Green had begun the move down the left flank with a neat 1-2 over the halfway line before releasing the ball to Lua, who turned easily inside Mellberg and passed rather than shoot. He gained instant reward when the keeper's rebound reached him. 2-0 

40 mins After another Mellberg error, James Coppinger struck a low curling shot into the bottom left corner from the edge of the box. Mellberg was immediately subbed and walked off to the dressing room muttering something about needing ice as he clutched his groin. 3-0 

45 mins Green and McClen caused the damage again, with the latter's pass splitting open the defence. Brian Kerr ran through and just managed to get enough of a touch for his shot to bounce in as he collided with goalkeeper and defender - the ref had looked poised to award a penalty but indicated the goal.4-0

Half time: Newcastle Reserves 4 Villa Reserves 0

47 mins A cross from the left fell for Distin at the far post, and when Enckleman punched clear, the bal fell to Kerr on the right side of the box. No doubt buoyed by his earlier goal, he rattled back in a low 20-yard effort that was deflected in by Villa's Danny Jackman. 5-0

83 mins With the game won and all three subs used, United were down to 10 mean with Griffin's departure - another suspect groin seeming the cause. Kerr filled in at right back but could do little about Gavin Melaugh's unexpected 25 yard rifled effort which dropped into the far side of the goal past a flailing Harper. 5-1 

86 mins It took him rather longer than on his debut at Bradford, but on his first home appearance Michael Chopra completed the half dozen with a close range shot at the near post following a left wing cross from Olivier Bernard. 6-1 

Full time: Newcastle Reserves 6 Villa Reserves 1

An ebullient Tommy Craig commented:

""Every now and then you almost get everything from your team and last night was one of those occasions. We had a terrific game and some great movement but probably the highlight of the game was the way we pressed the ball. We were hungry to get it back from every quarter.

"Our kitman George Ramshaw had said after a recent game that we were going to give someone a hiding - and he was right. I think you can call it a rout, we were always on top of the game and never lost control.

"There were a lot of good goals and Michael came on and proved his worth. And Caldwell and Distin were tremendous too."

At the third time of asking, Newcastle finally managed to reproduce their away form in front of the Kingston Park faithful against a Villa side who have now conceded 15 goals in their last four away trips.

After the last home game had seen a comprehensive toon performance in everything but goalscoring for most of the ninety minutes, and an eventual 1-0 loss to Leeds, an early home goal was required. Courtesy of Gary Caldwell we almost had one as well, but his first minute lob bounced off the crossbar and Coppinger was unable to reach the rebound and follow in.

However, such was the domination of Newcastle that goals seemed inevitable, and once Lua had struck, Villa posed little threat at either end and we more or less did what we wanted. Whether a forced reshuffling of the side at 0-0 helped we'll never know, but Boyd's replacement of the apparently-injured Quinn added another body to midfield and allowed us to push forward more as Villa looked incapable of threatening Harper's goal.

Regular watchers of the reserves will know that when they are on song, our lads play some good stuff and fluid one touch passing moves are the order of the day. At times in this game it was almost as if we were indulging too much in the fancy stuff, but once the goals started flying in we were certainly in the groove. Lua Lua took his tally to six for the season with the opening two strikes, and was in a slightly more sharing frame of mind than usual, with a little less trickery and more awareness of his colleagues.

There seemed no end to the goal spree and after being deservedly clapped off at half time, the lads started again straight away to further torment their visitors. People tell me that Steve Stone was playing, but I cannot honestly recall the Gateshead lad touching the ball, and he cut an unhappy figure in the (soft) centre of the Villa side.

Slightly more threatening was the battle-hardened Ian Taylor, who became embroiled with Newcastle players once or twice and channeled his frustration with a couple of sly digs and taps. Villa did mount a mini-revival as we played a man short, and they briefly spent some time in the unaccustomed area in front of our penalty area. However, their sole response to our salvo was a Melaugh blaster that flew past Harper, and an earlier effort that our second-choice keeper come off his line to save well.

We could easily have had double figures, but the crowd went home happy with six. A better display from Stuart Green could partly be attributed to a more central role, while James Coppinger was in need of a goal to boost his confidence and happily got one. As for Chopra, well he doesn't seem to need any encouragement.       
We moved up to second in the Premier Reserve League North on the same points as leaders, Manchester United, but still with an inferior goal difference despite last night's avalanche. However we face a stern test of our credentials when they travel to Southport in 10 days time to face Liverpool's second string.

Biffa 

Reports