As the hunt for Premiership football gets ever closer, its time to start sniffing out meaningless pre-season friendly games. Most clubs see it as a chance to promote themselves around the world with Chelsea going to China and Liverpool making a visit over to Poland. Perhaps they were making a quick stop over to recruit some cut price labour to build their new stadium? Anyway, Newcastle are the latest club to be involved in a couple of games against a few half decent foreign oppositions. But Newcastle are competing in more then just a match! Oh yes, silverware is at stake with none other then Mallorca Summer Cup being severed up as a prize for the winning team. Perhaps Kevin Keegan can use it to style his hair, desperately wishing he had enough to mould himself a really bad perm like in his old playing days.
Amazingly enough, the competition is taking place in Mallorca and the teams taking part aside from Newcastle are – Hertha Berlin, Hannover 96 and RCD Mallorca. Unless I’m being really stupid or just tanked up on beer soon, it appears that Newcastle are only playing Hertha Berlin and RCD Mallorca. Why Hannover aren’t good enough is a bit puzzling. I would have presumed you’d have to play everyone to make the group stand out. Maybe there’s not enough time, Newcastle do have to play PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday after playing Mallorca on Sunday. We can’t let our precious footballers play to many games and hurt themselves can we? However, the scoring system for this match is also a bit wonky. Not only do you get three points for a win but there are no draws in this game. If a game is even, a penalty shootout decides the winner. And if this wasn’t complicated enough, a winning team gets more points depending on how many goals they score. Could be amusing if someone gets thumped 10-0.
Just like previous pre-season matches against Hartlepool and Doncaster, Newcastle were fielding a very weakened side due to all the injuries that seem to plague them. Upfront was a comedy duo consisting of Alan Smith and Shola Ameobi. Between the pair of them, they never scored a goal last season. So hopes were never high of them plonking the ball in to the back of the net. Amazingly, it’s been out of favour midfielder Damian Duff who thumped a hat trick in passed Hartlepool with new boy Danny Guthrie getting the other goal. That was the sweet taste of victory with a 4-1 win. Of course that high didn’t last and they got beat 1-0 of Doncaster and registered roughly three shots on targets.
The eyes of the toon faithful were focussed very much on new Argentinean winger Gutierrez tonight. Was he worth all that money? And can he do more then have just a hilarious goal celebration? Well that is when he can score them. From the immediate outset it was clear that he likes to play football. He isn’t going to sit back and let the money roll in. Off he was on both wings, central midfield and even pegging it back to defend a few sloppy loose balls and soft back pass.
Early in the game Ameobi had a chance to slot the ball home, but as usual he scuffed his shot wide of the left post. From there on in it was constant Newcastle pressure with bags of possession and corners coming at Hertha Berlin. But something was missing. It wasn’t the service, Milner and Gutierrez offered a lot of slick passes and crosses. But nobody was there to convert them. Martins was still in Nigeria following the death of his mother and Own was injured – again. Even if he was on the pitch, Viduka wouldn’t have been able to kick-start his aging legs to stride forward. The first half was pretty much like this with no side having any clear cut chances to convert to take the lead.
The second half saw a slight change. Sadly for Newcastle it was for the worst when Gutierrez was substituted for Damian Duff. Duff played his part well and ran at the defenders but he couldn’t make up the ground that Gutierrez was doing in the first half and some in the second half. Hertha Berlin went for the substitution option and this proved to be their success of the night. After oddly loosing their first choice keeper for this match when he couldn’t deal with a corner, two youngsters came in to the frame and ran ring around the Newcastle defence. After Enrique failed to clear another ball, it was a simple case of rounding the keeper and heading in to an empty net. Newcastle also had a third choice keeper in goal with Tim Krul taking over from the second choice to Shay Given – Steve Harper.
With ten minutes of the game remaining that shut the lid on any opportunity for Newcastle to get back in to the swing of things. But Keegan shouldn’t be that disappointed. His new signings shows hints of promise and with three pre-season games to go, it is crucial for them to get match fitness in order for a big test when the new season rolls round. Manchester Utd away from home won’t be easy. Nor will Arsenal away as the second match from St James’ Park.
