Newcastle 3-1 Brighton: Eddie The Two-Coast Turncoat Bags an Unearned Three Points

We turned up at St James' having won five on the bounce. Newcastle turned up having lost five on the bounce. Eddie Howe was reportedly being measured for a P45 and a small bedsit in Jesmond.

So we lost 3-1. Obviously

On current form we are operating as a registered charity. Newcastle’s win was tax deductible. Eddie Howe used the proceeds to buy a fresh pair of corduroys.

Twelfth minute. A hopeful long ball. Murphy chases. Verbruggen comes for it like a man stepping onto an icy pond in flip-flops, gets nowhere near, somehow ends up in row F of the Gallowgate, and Will Osula heads into an empty net the size of a small Northumbrian county.

Twenty-fourth minute. Bruno swings in a corner. Dan Burn rises.

2-0. Half time

We came out better. Sixty-first minute. Pope, generously, passes it directly to Hinshelwood, who finishes like a man who can’t quite believe his luck. 2-1. The away end believes. For twenty whole minutes we are good. Twenty minutes. That’s how long it takes to make a curry apparently.

Then

Yankuba Minteh. Used to play for Newcastle. Now plays for us. Returns to his old ground. Finds himself unmarked, six yards out, with the goal yawning open. The world stops turning. He looks up. He composes himself. He sends the ball roughly in the direction of a passing Ryanair flight to Edinburgh.

We pressed. Kostoulas forced a save from Pope. The away end believed harder. Then 95th minute. Joelinton on the break. Barnes alone in the six yard box screaming for the simple square ball. Joelinton, deciding he is the protagonist of his own film, ignores him completely and shoots. Verbruggen saves. Barnes mops up the rebound.

3-1

Where this leaves us

Seventh. Brentford above us. Brentford. A gambling-website project run off a spreadsheet by a bloke eating cold risotto at three in the morning, finishing above us because in 2019 they decided who they were and stuck with it. We're still in the workshop introducing ourselves.

West Ham got filleted 3-0 by Brentford while we imploded on Tyneside. Stadium they don't fit, owner you could land a Boeing on, goal difference of minus nineteen. Properly cooked.

Tottenham play Villa tonight needing a win to escape the relegation zone. Tottenham. In the relegation zone. I have waited my entire adult life to type that sentence. A glass of something white, crsip and cold, a sunset over the South Downs, and a single tear landing unmistakably on a smile.

They can have Europe

Honestly. They can. Brentford, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Fulham, every other side scrapping for the scraps. Take it. Take all of it (as Nigel said on the way home with a mouth full of Brown Ale).

What we need is not Europe

Final Thought

The Premier League is seven spots at the top, three at the bottom, and ten in the middle for keeping up with the Joneses. I do not give a damn about the bottom three (unless it’s us). All I want in a season is to beat Palace (twice would be nice). And, to beat Everton. Mostly for Nigel, who’s been to the Amex precisely twice and Everton beat us on each occasion. He’s owed.

The likes of Brentford, Bournemouth, Chelsea and Fulham can scrap for Europe. The Champions League is the only continental competition worth a Premier League pile-up. Everything else is a tax the small clubs pay so the big ones can hoover up the points behind them. A drain dressed as a dream. We can do without.

Up the Albion