A blast of arctic north east air greeted us on the rooftop of the grainger st Multi Storey and a quick dash to a The town Wall for a pre match Guinness was welcomed.
Locals were hardly optimistic,not an unusual trait I find with Geordies though to be fair so can be tricky to gauge realistic opinion but concerns over Debuchy and Collocini missing seemed valid.
Pellegrini had decided to stick with playing 2 up top which I'm still not overconfident about away from home as I would rather we pack 5 across the midfield to give the defensive high line a bit of cover. Steven Taylor was back in centre of defense who I thought was someone we could exploit.
After climbing the steps to just below cloud level,we got to our seats as the teams were emerging from the tunnel and settled down to watch City grab control of the early exchanges as Newcastle sat back a little and allowed Silva to dictate affairs and it won't have come as a a surprise to the prematch doommongers when Silva fed Kolorov for him to send over a cross that Dzeko easily converted at the near post.The referee was giving City free reign of the 50/50s and Taylor only appeared to have to look in Dzekos direction to be penalised.
We wondered if Newcastle would fold tamely as they did at the Etihad in August but driven on by Cabaye,the terrific Tiote and the willing running of Anita,Newcastle turned the tide and began to pin City back and dominate.City were always dangerous on the break but were getting overrun at times in the middle of the pitch and you felt an equaliser was coming and but for the intervention of some dreadful officiating it would've been from an unstoppable Tiote shot which a Newcastle player in an offside position,although not interfering,got out of the way of to see it nestle in joe harts bottom corner.
The natives were fuming,rightly so,and it brought the game and the ground to life as City held on to their slender lead and headed for the sanctuary of the dressing room at half time as Mr Jones was given no need to wonder what the locals thought of his performance.
2nd half saw a fired up Newcastle side aggressively pile into City and the dreadful referee allowed carte Blanche for the aggrieved Geordies to turn the game into a battle.
2 wrongs don't make a right and he had gone from giving City all the 50-50s in the first part of the game,made an horrendous judgement disallowing the goal and then appears to try to even up matters on the Newcastle players behalf for the 2nd half.
Inept doesn't begin to describe such a performance
Newcastle were the better side in the 2nd half and but for not being clinical enough with their openings,in particular Remy's clean through attempt,they couldn't draw level.
The replacement of Anita for Cisse seemed to take away Newcastles shape and City could've scored on the counter numerous times in the closing stages and finally got a second through Negredo to give City an extremely flattering scoreline when a draw would probably have been about right over the 90 mins.
Just a word on Pardew,who I find as classless as the cockney idiot who's directly above him.
The touch line shenanigans with Pellegrini simply illustrate that he's not fit to grace the same technical area that was occupied with the class and charm of sir Bobby for many years,who was always a gentleman
Good luck for the remainder of the season
Regards PPLF
Locals were hardly optimistic,not an unusual trait I find with Geordies though to be fair so can be tricky to gauge realistic opinion but concerns over Debuchy and Collocini missing seemed valid.
Pellegrini had decided to stick with playing 2 up top which I'm still not overconfident about away from home as I would rather we pack 5 across the midfield to give the defensive high line a bit of cover. Steven Taylor was back in centre of defense who I thought was someone we could exploit.
After climbing the steps to just below cloud level,we got to our seats as the teams were emerging from the tunnel and settled down to watch City grab control of the early exchanges as Newcastle sat back a little and allowed Silva to dictate affairs and it won't have come as a a surprise to the prematch doommongers when Silva fed Kolorov for him to send over a cross that Dzeko easily converted at the near post.The referee was giving City free reign of the 50/50s and Taylor only appeared to have to look in Dzekos direction to be penalised.
We wondered if Newcastle would fold tamely as they did at the Etihad in August but driven on by Cabaye,the terrific Tiote and the willing running of Anita,Newcastle turned the tide and began to pin City back and dominate.City were always dangerous on the break but were getting overrun at times in the middle of the pitch and you felt an equaliser was coming and but for the intervention of some dreadful officiating it would've been from an unstoppable Tiote shot which a Newcastle player in an offside position,although not interfering,got out of the way of to see it nestle in joe harts bottom corner.
The natives were fuming,rightly so,and it brought the game and the ground to life as City held on to their slender lead and headed for the sanctuary of the dressing room at half time as Mr Jones was given no need to wonder what the locals thought of his performance.
2nd half saw a fired up Newcastle side aggressively pile into City and the dreadful referee allowed carte Blanche for the aggrieved Geordies to turn the game into a battle.
2 wrongs don't make a right and he had gone from giving City all the 50-50s in the first part of the game,made an horrendous judgement disallowing the goal and then appears to try to even up matters on the Newcastle players behalf for the 2nd half.
Inept doesn't begin to describe such a performance
Newcastle were the better side in the 2nd half and but for not being clinical enough with their openings,in particular Remy's clean through attempt,they couldn't draw level.
The replacement of Anita for Cisse seemed to take away Newcastles shape and City could've scored on the counter numerous times in the closing stages and finally got a second through Negredo to give City an extremely flattering scoreline when a draw would probably have been about right over the 90 mins.
Just a word on Pardew,who I find as classless as the cockney idiot who's directly above him.
The touch line shenanigans with Pellegrini simply illustrate that he's not fit to grace the same technical area that was occupied with the class and charm of sir Bobby for many years,who was always a gentleman
Good luck for the remainder of the season
Regards PPLF
