Leeds United 0 - 2 Newcastle United

I ended my last article by saying…

“I’m not as confident as I have been for more games but I would like to think we will leave with at least 1 point. Leave with 3 and I’ll be over the moon.”

And that is exactly what I am, over the moon. That was a potentially tricky match against a Leeds United side that have found a bit of form recently. Another win, 8 league wins in a row, yet another clean sheet and yet more goals from Dwight Gayle. It could not have gone any better.

When I have read the press reports of the game this morning, one word seems to stand out more than any other - professional. To be fair, they’re spot on, that was a professional performance if ever I saw one - it wasn’t fancy, we didn’t play all that well (or at least not as well as we know we can do) throughout the 90 minutes but when we needed to defend, we defended well and when we attacked, we were clinical. Job done. On to the next.

We did of course ride our luck a little; Leeds will feel hard done to when the hand ball penalty claim against Jack Colback was waved away - we have seen those given before and had they got a penalty then the game could have turned out completely different. However, even if Leeds had brought it back to 1-1 I am so confident in this side that I still think we would have pushed on to win the game. I was actually more suprised their first penalty appeal was waved away when their left winger looked to be tripped inside the area earlier on in the game but you could also point to the penalty area shove on Lascelles that should have resulted in a penalty to us.

We didn’t have all that many opportunities through the game but the chances we did have, we took well. Karl Darlow made a few saves throughout the game but in all honesty he was never really tested.

Rafa made 4 changes to the team that won at home to Cardiff City a couple of weeks ago, the most notable was Aleksandar Mitrovic who dropped to the bench as Dwight Gayle got the chance to once again lead the line, and once again he did not disappoint. Ayoze Perez got a game in the number 10 role behind Gayle but I thought he was poor; he tried lots of neat tricks and flicks but rarely did they come off and it wouldn’t suprise me if Mo Diame gets his place back in the next match, a home fixture against Blackburn Rovers on Saturday. Once again, the defence was rock sold, Vurnon Anita slotting in at right back and giving a very safe, comfortable performance. Lascelles and Clark looked rock steady in the middle and Dummett put in a decent defensive performance on the left.

As ever, Jonjo Shelvey pretty much ran the show, especially in the first half. He obviously has his disciplinary hearing coming up and should he receive a ban as a result of that, he will be a big, big miss. I said in my rather tongue in cheek article last week that Steven Gerrard would be ideal cover for Shelvey and whilst that move is unlikely, my point stands. I do not feel we have cover for Shelvey within the squad. We have plenty of defensive minded midfielders in Colback, Hayden, Tiote and Anita but we don’t have a player with as much creativity as Shelvey and this could be a problem if a ban comes.

The 3 points move us 5 points clear of Brighton who only managed a draw against Aston Villa in the Friday night fixture. We’re creeping towards a record we set under Kevin Keegan in the 90s for the highest number of league wins in a row and whilst that would be great to break, we just need to keep looking at the game in front of us. That team is Blackburn and I bet they don’t fancy facing us right now.