Craig Bellamy leads Man City to 2-1 victory over Newcastle

By: j | January 28th, 2009

Manchester City put aside its off-pitch troubles with a solid 2-1 victory over Newcastle at Eastlands. Led with goals from Shaun Wright-Phillips and Wales international Craig Bellamy, the Citizens climb to ninth in the table.

Man City took the lead at the seventeenth minute when Wayne Bridge zeroed in on Robinho, with the Brazilian international providing Shaun Wright-Phillips a easy finish from just outside the six. The match took a dark turn for the Magpies a few minutes later as Michael Owen was replaced by Jonás Gutiérrez due to injury. Following his injury, Newcastle’s offensive efforts through to the half were highly limited and were only a modest challenge for City ‘keeper Joe Hart. Joe Kinnear’s injury problems continued after the break as Joey Barton limped off four minutes after the hour to be replaced by ex Schalke man Peter Lövenkrands. Although the match showed more intent after the restart it stayed at the same score-line until thirteen minutes remained when Shaun Wright-Phillips found Craig Bellamy and the new man turned perfectly to dispatch the ball into the net. Only four minutes later, young Canadian U21 David Edgar separated Wayne Bridge from the ball and quickly passed to Andy Carroll, to which the young start quickly sent the ball into the net to bring the match to its final 2-1 scoreline.

To summarize the match, the best word I can use is “team.” While the club has soared to some impressive goal scoring encounters, it hasn’t shown a fire and sand-paper grit determination to overcome as a team. This was not a brilliant performance but one that showed promise as a unit and that in my opinion is the best thing you can utter after a match. It is very evident that through the consistent attacks of the club by the media, something very unpredictable has happened; Mark Hughes is finding a way to mold a team. Possibly it is a back to the wall mentally, the age old siege mentality that I embrace of “anyway, anyhow” but this effort was different today. Robinho’s movement, particularly with Craig Bellamy showed gads of promise and he was clearly the man of the match for an aspect that I cannot recall seeing so evident in his club playing career, he was a team player. From a defending aspect the combination of Nigel de Jong and Pablo Zabaleta looked rock solid and while I warrant the challenges of Newcastle, isn’t that of what will be seen in the UEFA Cup, it is perfect step forward.

The Citizens return to action this Saturday against relegation threatened Stoke City.