NEWCASTLE // Newcastle United supporters have learnt to expect the unexpected so, given their peculiar identity, perhaps there was a strange inevitability about this. A side at its lowest ebb beat a team on a rare high.
A group that kicked off in the relegation zone defeated one that was suddenly being touted for the Premier League title.
So this may be a reprieve for the increasingly beleaguered Steve McClaren and a reality check for Liverpool’s more giddy fans. Their three previous away games in England had yielded the most emphatic, and momentous, of victories. Liverpool scored three goals at Chelsea, four at Manchester City and six at Southampton.
Yet they barely troubled Newcastle goalkeeper Rob Elliot as Jurgen Klopp lost his unbeaten away record.
More Premier League
Chelsea fall flat, Arsenal roll and Manchester United jeered at Old Trafford – in pictures
Manuel Pellegrini frustrated by crippled Man City: ‘We didn’t have the energy to compete’
Poll: Which Premier League team can overtake Leicester City on top of the table?
“They deserved the win,” the German said graciously. It was just McClaren’s third in the league and came in uncharacteristic fashion. Newcastle had lost their previous two games, conceding eight goals. They were deemed lazy. They responded by outrunning Klopp’s ferociously fit Liverpool side. One scoreline was 2-0. Another was 117-116, the distance in kilometres each team covered.
“The two hardest working players had to be Moussa Sissoko and Georginio Wijnaldum,” McClaren said. They were also the most incisive.
McClaren has only triumphed twice at St James’ Park, but the Frenchman has helped make, and the Dutchman score, six goals in those matches.
Wijnaldum’s four-goal salvo against Norwich City was more spectacular but, given the mounting pressure on McClaren, this may prove the more crucial contribution to keep the former England manager employed.
Technically, he only struck once, deep into stoppage time when he delicately dinked a shot over Simon Mignolet after Sissoko picked him out. Yet the game turned when he met an earlier pass from Sissoko, advanced into space and shot from an angle. It looped up off Martin Skrtel’s knee, taking it away from Mignolet. It was the Slovakian’s seventh own goal in the Premier League; only Richard Dunne has more.
Indeed technically, there were no attempts on target until Dejan Lovren’s tame 89th-minute header was held by Elliot. Alberto Moreno nevertheless found the Newcastle net before then, volleying in James Milner’s cross-field ball. Yet as the left-back was wrongly ruled offside by the linesman, Liverpool were denied a glorious equaliser.
“He should have seen it,” Klopp said. “It was pretty clear.”
It was a moment out of keeping with their performance. Scintillating on their recent travels under Klopp, they lacked their usual dynamism on Tyneside. “I don’t know why,” their manager said.
It may have been different had Christian Benteke supplied a breakthrough. Instead, he hooked a shot over the bar from four yards after Newcastle were troubled by Moreno’s corner.
It was a rare incident in a quiet opening.
Newcastle were lacklustre, shambolic and disastrous defensively in their thrashings by Leicester City and Crystal Palace. They defined themselves with a role reversal.
The bar has been lowered to such an extent that doing the basics represented a welcome improvement.
“You have to work, you have to run,” McClaren said. “They have just proved that the harder you work, the luckier you get.
“Now they have to maintain that.”
Points were proved and gained.
“The players do care and there is desire,” McClaren said.
Mistimed challenges brought bookings, but they were signs of a commitment that had seemed lacking.
The task of restoring pride started with a more professional attitude. There was more organisation, more positional discipline and more vocal backing.
The roar of approval when Paul Dummett slid in forcefully to dispossess Nathaniel Clyne was telling.
Newcastle were cheered off the pitch. They had gone from pariahs to popular in the space of 90 minutes.
sports@thenational.ae
Follow us on twitter at @NatSportUAE