Lewis Hall on Newcastle’s Hull win: We let them get back into it

• Newcastle United beat Hull City 2-1 at St James’ Park, with goals from Lewis Hall and Joe Willock.
• Yoane Wissa missed a penalty for Hull City as Newcastle built a 2-0 lead.
• Hull City pulled a goal back late on, making the closing stages tenser than the scoreline suggests.
• Newcastle now turn to the Carabao Cup fourth round, away at Everton on Thursday, 29 October.

Newcastle United won 2-1 at St James’ Park on Saturday, but Hull City turned a routine victory into an uneasy final quarter.

Lewis Hall and Joe Willock put Newcastle two goals clear inside the opening hour, either side of a missed Yoane Wissa penalty.

The Newcastle vs Hull City talking point since full time is a straightforward one: how did a two-goal cushion so nearly become a scrap for points toward the end of the game?

Newcastle vs Hull City: how it unfolded

Hall opened the scoring inside the first half, finishing confidently to give Newcastle an early platform.

Willock doubled the advantage before the hour mark, and St James’ Park settled into what looked like a comfortable evening once Wissa’s penalty went begging.

Hull City had other ideas. They pulled a goal back to make it 2-1, and the final quarter turned scrappy as Newcastle tried to see out a lead that had looked settled just minutes earlier.

The result was never seriously threatened, but the closing stages carried far more tension than the opening hour had promised.

For the goals, the substitutions and the full performance data, our full report on the 2-1 win covers the contest in more depth.

The expert angle: complacency creeps into Newcastle’s game management

Two goals to the good with less than an hour played should settle most matches at this level.

Instead, Newcastle spent the closing stages defending a lead that had briefly looked untouchable, and that gap between early control and late discomfort is exactly what Hall flagged after the final whistle.

Speaking to Chronicle Live, Hall said: “We let them get back into the game, which we need to look at.

“It was a mixture of our own doing and a good finish from their guy. When the score is 2-1 you know where the game is going to go – it’s just about the mentality.”

That is the Lewis Hall Newcastle Hull City verdict in a nutshell: a two-goal lead at home should not be thrown away. After Hull scored, it was about making sure the job was done.

Newcastle installed a new five-man leadership group under Matthias Jaissle just days before this game, a structure built in part to sharpen exactly this kind of in-game responsibility.

Saturday’s lapse against Hull City is the first real test of whether that new structure changes anything once a game is actually under way.