A great day, but let’s not get carried away...
Where to start then? Well let’s start with the manager - Chris Hughton has done a fantastic job on a tight budget and I was delighted for him yesterday, I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he delivers his team talks, he must be a fantastic man motivator as yesterday he brought the very best out of our team. There wasn’t a player on the pitch yesterday who failed to perform, we defended from the front and played some excellent attacking football, regardless of what people say about how poor Villa were yesterday, the sort of football we played yesterday would have given a lot of Premiership defenders a problem, Routledge and Gutierrez were full of running all day, James Perch looked solid on his home debut after a nervous start, including a fantastic block when the score was 2-0 and Mike Williamson was nothing short of fantastic at centre half.
cheer up son, you did well!! 
Carroll was of course the one who grabbed all the headlines and hopefully yesterday will have proven to his doubters that he does have the ability to score goals at this level, consistency is of course the key though. Barton, Smith and Nolan worked tirelessly and didn’t give Villa any chance to play. Enrique and Colocinni looked like different players to those who played in the Premiership last time around.
A few ‘experts’ who shall remain nameless condemned us to relegation before the season kicked off. One utterly dreadful piece of journalism after the Man United game, tore Andy Carroll to pieces, somehow suggesting that one missed header in that game was some sort of proof that he was nowhere near good enough for this league. Madness. I hope they were watching yesterday as a group of players who are desperate to succeed for each other, the fans, and the manager produced the sort of performance that the fans love to come and watch. It was even sweeter as we watched the Villa fans suffer, who had taken such perverse delight in our relegation the season before.
I still can’t quite believe that performance, it was a brilliant day to be a Newcastle fan, however there is still a lot of work to be done, and we as fans must keep our feet firmly on the ground.
Submitted by Dave Brown
23/8/2010
