Newcastle United 1 - 0 Crystal Palace

Hope.

That is how I ended the last article prior to the Newcastle United v Crystal Palace match yesterday and hope is exactly what we have now. Rafa Benitez you magnificent, beautiful man!

It might not have been the greatest of games but thanks to a spectacular Andros Townsend free kick in the second half and a Yohan Cabaye penalty miss, the magpies have climbed out of the bottom three for the first time since February and boy does that feel good!

The game was pretty flat and I actually watched it from an unfamiliar position in the ground. It was the first time I have sat in row AA, pitch side, right behind the goal and about 3 foot away from where Andros Townsend ran after he scored his screamer (my grinning teeth appear heavily on Match of the Day). It’s an awful seat to watch football as you just don’t see what is going on in the game, you have no perspective of the pitch, no sense of how the football game is flowing. You also miss a bit of the atmosphere so it was refreshing to see us as Sky Sports’ Game of the Day once again so I could re-live the whole 90 minutes. It was like watching two different games!

The atmosphere was cracking and despite there being a few boos for Cabaye, the support was generally behind the team from the very beginning. Alan Pardew went pretty much un-noticed which would have annoyed him more than if he had been booed. Mind, I do have the Palace fans’ “Aaaaaal, super Al, Aaaaaal. Super Al” chant stuck in my head and it is sending me slowly nuts.

Once again under Benitez we witnessed a fairly uneventful first half in which we were pretty lucky to go in level from but then things changed dramatically in the second half and we took the game to Palace. Yes, we were lucky with the penalty miss but with just 2 games to go, luck is exactly what we need.

Andros Townsend turned in yet another man of the match performance and Jamaal Lascelles looked magnificent at the back once again. Everyone looked good; there were no poor performances although I would consider starting Aleksandar Mitrovic over Papiss Demba Cisse next time; I do think that Mitro is a cracking player to bring on as an impact sub, Cisse seems to be so isolated up front, for me something needs to change. But hey, I trust Rafa 100%.

Sunderland grabbed a late equaliser against Stoke City which may end up being pretty important but for now we can bask in the glory and see our team out of danger…for now.

Up next for Newcastle United is an away game against already relegated Aston Villa. It is a game that we should win given Villa’s woeful form but it’s not a game to take lightly. Villa are a wounded animal still capable of a bite. At the same time as our match, Sunderland face Chelsea at home and Norwich entertain Manchester United in an early kick off on the Saturday. It is a massive weekend for all sides but Newcastle United certainly have the momentum going in to the must win Villa game. Survival is still in Sunderland’s hands by virtue of their game in hand but we can’t concentrate too much one that. Quite simply we have to just keep winning. It is going to be a nervy couple of weeks.

Lastly, I can’t resist but to put up a couple of the photos I took at the game. Terrible position for watching football but a fantastic place to take a good photo!