Steve McClaren secured his first competitive win as Newcastle manager as the Magpies thumped Northampton Town 4-1 at St James’ Park tonight. Florian Thauvin opened the scoring in the third minute and proceeded to assist Newcastle’s other three goals in what was a brilliant home debut for the Frenchman.
Here’s what we learnt from tonight’s game:
We took a cup game seriously!
Even though Mike Williamson and Yoan Gouffran were recalled to the first-team for tonight’s game, the line-up was very strong to face a League Two side, which was promising to see.
Cheick Tiote is very, very rusty
Ten minutes into his first game of the McClaren era, Tiote gave away a penalty – which Richards calmly slotted past Karl Darlow. Shortly after, he gifted Northampton a free-kick in a dangerous position, before picking up a booking 20 minutes into the game.
In the second half, Tiote was effectively anonymous – though this was an improvement on the first half’s performance.
The same old culprits making mistakes
Yoan Gouffran and Mike Williamson were both handed their first competitive starts under Steve McClaren against Northampton – much to the frustration of the Geordie faithful. Even though they are far from Premier League standard, you would expect the fringe duo to excel against a League Two side but that was too much to ask. Williamson resorted to hoofing the ball at every opportunity while Gouffran looked incredibly uncomfortable in central midfield and hardly contributed to the game.
The blow of watching Williamson for 90 minutes was softened by his 60th-minute goal, courtesy of a brilliant Florian Thauvin cross.
Florian Thauvin had a brilliant home debut
Just three minutes into his home debut and Florian Thauvin had put Newcastle 1-0 up against Northampton. Several minutes later and Siem de Jong had done the same, thanks to a brilliant ball by Thauvin. After the break, the Frenchman picked up another two assists for Janmaat and Williamson’s goals, to take his tally to one goal and three assists – better Remy Cabella’s record from last season (one goal and two assists in 31 appearances).
On the 65th minute, his number came up on the fourth official’s board to be replaced by Aleksandar Mitrovic, which was met by a standing ovation by the home fans. A superb home debut for Florian.
