Newcastle 1-2 Crystal Palace
by Harry De Cosemo
at St James’s Park
 

STEVE BRUCE felt his Newcastle side didn’t deserve to lose on Tuesday night, when Crystal Palace came from behind to secure a 2-1 victory at St James’s Park.

The visitors defended well in the second half, but Newcastle appeared to run out of ideas as the game went on after conceding two quick goals in a difficult spell. 

Bruce was frustrated after the game, but believed there has been progress in his side’s showings.

“The performance was pleasing for me,” he told reporters via Zoom.

“Of course you hope that if you keep performing well, the results will come. That is back-to-back home games [against Leeds and Palace] which we haven’t taken anything from, but we certainly didn’t deserve to get beat.

“[Palace had] 10 or 15 minutes in the game, but mistakes cost you at this level.”

Buoyed by victory at Everton on Saturday – their first win of the year – Newcastle were ahead within two minutes. Miguel Almiron won the ball and crossed from the left, finding Callum Wilson who laid off Jonjo Shelvey. He caught the shot on the half-volley and found the bottom corner.

Stunned, Palace almost found themselves two down when Jeff Hendrick swivelled and shot wide after they failed to clear a corner.

Newcastle’s good start was undone on 21 minutes when Jairo Riedewald levelled. More good play down the left allowed Patrick van Aanholt to cut back from the byline, and when the ball eventually found the Dutchman, he drove a shot high into the net via a deflection off Ciaran Clark.

Four minutes later, Newcastle were stunned as Gary Cahill headed Palace ahead from Eberechi Eze’s well-placed free kick.

The frantic pace of the game continued past the half-hour mark, and Newcastle looked to build up a head of steam after half-time, but they couldn’t carve out any clear-cut chances. 

Palace were happy to hold their shape and play on the counter-attack, but talisman Wilfried Zaha was soon forced off with a hamstring problem.

Bruce summoned Allan Saint-Maximin on 63 minutes in a bid to swing the momentum, but the Frenchman didn’t have an immediate impact. With just over 10 minutes remaining, he drove in from the left and saw a shot blocked by Scott Dann.

As the game entered four minutes of stoppage time, Zaha’s replacement Andros Townsend missed a golden opportunity to seal the points against his former club, but Newcastle hadn’t done enough by then to deserve anything from the game.

Roy Hodgson was happy with the way his side managed the early setback and later imposed themselves.

“Conceding the early goal made things that much harder, but we coped well and played some good football. We deserved to lead at half-time,” the Palace manager said.

“I thought we passed the ball well first half. They had it much more in the second half, but we used the space we were granted to good effect.”