Newcastle United ended the winning streak of Liverpool with a narrow 2-0 victory at St James’ Park in the only English Premier League fixture on Sunday.
The Reds were average at best, but dominated the proceedings and should have gone ahead through Christian Benteke who wasted a great chance in the first-half. They were punished by the hosts, as a Georginio Wijnaldum’s strike deflected off Martin Skrtel and past Simon Mignolet.
Liverpool stepped up their efforts there after and were controversially denied a goal to Alberto Moreno, however, in the end it did not matter as Wijnaldum sealed their third victory of the season in stoppage time, with a clever finish to conclude a swift counter-attack.
Lacklustre Liverpool
The Reds were slightly below what we have seen over the past two weeks, a lot of that was due to their slow ball distribution and lack of creativity. There were a few factors that caused this, none more so than the absence of Philippe Coutinho and Newcastle’s ability to drag Liverpool into a scrappy fight.
Without Coutinho and even Adam Lallana, the Merseysiders were guilty of taking too many touches, or failed to find the required pass to open up their opposition. James Milner could not buy any space, whereas Joe Allen and Lucas Leiva made too many simple passes. Finally, Roberto Firmino did not see enough of the ball in open pastures.
What Newcastle did cannot not go unnoticed either. They were committed and hard working, which caused plenty of frustration for the Reds, as it restricted their time to pick out a pass.
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