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27 mins: McTominay has his latest attempt at getting a second yellow card, pulling back Almiron, but having been so very keen on booking him the first time, Kevin Friend is really not at all interested in doing it again.
26 mins: Now Man Utd are stretching the visitors on both flanks and looking more dangerous, though their delivery from wide isn’t reliably good.
GOAL! Man Utd 1-1 Newcastle (Martial, 24 mins)
United equalise with their first decent shot! They work the ball down the left and pull back to Pereira, who taps it straight to Martial, whose shots towards the near post is well struck but should have forced Dubravka into a regulation save – instead he gets two hands on it and lets it slip through them.
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21 mins: What a strangely fallible side this Manchester United team is. They win a fourth corner, from which Greenwood eventually does that Greenwood thing of jinking onto his left foot and shooting. It looks like it would have nestled inside the far post had a defender not been in the way.
18 mins: There’s a delay while VAR checks to see if the bouncing ball hit Joelinton’s arm in the build-up, but they decide it didn’t.
GOAL! Man Utd 0-1 Newcastle (Matty Longstaff, 17 mins)
Now they do take the lead! Almiron finds Longstaff with a fine infield pass and he chips the ball through to Joelinton, who holds off Maguire, turns and lays back to Longstaff, who controls and then passes into the corner of the net!
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16 mins: What a chance for Newcastle, and what a miss from Gayle! Joelinton plays him through, and as United hesitate in search of an offside flag Gayle homes in on goal but with De Gea exposed blasts his shot over the bar!
14 mins: Newcastle break; Willems’ pass is cut out but the visitors win it straight back and move it to Almiron, on the left-hand corner of the area, whose shot flies wide of the near post.
12 mins: Manchester United win a free-kick, 10 yards or so outside the area and left of central. Rashford takes it, and his shot flicks off the wall on its way behind.
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10 mins: And McTominay continues to hog my updates by having the game’s first shot. It was from quite a distance, and was pretty useless.
7 mins: McTominay appears to have recovered from whatever was making him limp earlier, and is thus free to throw himself into more challenges. United are dominating these early exchanges, without really worrying the Newcastle defence.
4 mins: Now McTominay is hobbling, after chucking himself into another couple of clumsy challenges, neither of which seemed particularly wise in the circumstances.
1 min: Scott McTominay gets booked innside 20 seconds, for fouling Sean Longstaff. It’s extremely harsh in my opinion: there was very little contact, and you never get booked for that kind of challenge in the opening minute of a game. Well, not never, obviously, but close enough.
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And out they come! The players are busily handshaking as I type, kick-off just moments away.
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has a chat:
It’s still early days for Paul and we still feel he needs to be drip-fed into this, and play more and more and gradually. Andreas and Mason will freshen us up. Scott McTominay has been fantastic all season, he’s been one of the big, big pluses all season. He’s a leader, he knows what it means, and for us it’s about a good reaction now. We need a reaction after last week, and I hope we win. I’ve said to the boys, you’ve got to go out and prove to everyone what we’re about. Life’s not in one straight line. It’s ups and downs, you win some and you lose some, and you’ve just got to deal with it.
So Paul Pogba remains on the Manchester United bench, while Solskjaer brings in Andreas Pereira and Mason Greenwood. The Longstaff brothers come back in for Newcastle having both starred against the same opponents earlier this season, while Dwight Gayle starts for the first time in a long time.
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The teams!
Youll be wondering who’s going to be playing in this game, no doubt. Well, here’s your answer:
Man Utd: De Gea, Wan Bissaka, Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw, McTominay, Andreas Pereira, Fred, Greenwood, Rashford, Martial. Subs: Jones, Pogba, Mata, Lingard, Young, James, Romero.
Newcastle: Dubravka, Schar, Fernandez, Lejeune, Manquillo, Sean Longstaff, Matthew Longstaff, Almiron, Willems, Gayle, Joelinton. Subs: Carroll, Shelvey, Hayden, Krafth, Yedlin, Darlow, Atsu.
Referee: Kevin Friend.
“Given that both teams have the same number of points why does one count as having been surprisingly good and the other as surprisingly bad?” wonders David Wall. “Shouldn’t they both be considered equally so-so, or sometimes good, sometimes bad (which is actually what they have been, both pretty inconsistent). Describing them otherwise is really measuring them against expectations that might not be based on how each clubs actually stands (in all respects) right now.” There’s no room for that kind of logic here.
Hello world!
Half the season played, and the Uniteds of Newcastle and Manchester are level-pegging with 25 points apiece, thanks in part to the riproaring Newcastle win at St James’ Park in October, when Matty Longstaff scored the only goal of the game on his debut.
Steve Bruce says nobody should get carried away by how good Newcastle have been. “We haven’t done anything yet,” he insists. “We’ve given ourselves a nice platform, but we’re only halfway there, so we’ve got to show the same resilience and spirit that we’ve shown over the last few months and see where it takes us.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says nobody should get carried away by how bad Manchester United have been. “We’re halfway through this season and we knew this season was going to be a season of some ups and downs,” he insists. “This season will be used to find a team and a squad for next season, but hopefully we can speed this process up by getting more results. Expect us to be more consistent, definitely more experienced and learning from these setbacks, but at the moment we’re a little bit further behind than what I was hoping for, yeah.”
Newcastle head to Old Trafford in fine fettle having won five of their last eight games, all but one of them by a single goal, while Manchester United lost their last match to bottom-of-the-table Watford. The only positive aspect of that game was the performance off the bench of Paul Pogba, who was United’s most creative player by a distance despite only playing the final half-hour, and the Frenchman might be fit enough to start this one.
Welcome! Especially those of you who are settling in for a third full televised match of Boxing Day. That’s some good festive stamina. Well played.
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