Manchester United-Newcastle United: Time for the Magpies to Fly the Coup

Manchester United 5-Newcastle United 1

Saturday evening, at 5:15, Kevin Keegan's men took to the field with aspirations of beating the champions.

At 6:45, Kevin Keegan's men left the field thinking "What the heck just happened?".

St. James' Park had been known, to some, as a fortress in recent years, with teams struggling to beat a resilient Newcastle side.

A team that has unrivaled support, great facilities, and an exciting, fluent attacking style of football.

OK, well the last one may be inncorrect, but for those of us who remember the first Keegan-era Newcastle, as hard as it may be to believe, Newcastle were an awesome attacking force.

With the likes of David Ginola, Fastino Asprilla, Andy Cole, and Les Ferdinhand, the magpies forced Manchester United to change into 5th gear to retain the premiership.

Fast forward to 2008 and Newcastle now have Owen upfront with Alan Smith, Joey Barton, Emre, and N'Zogbia.

Hmm...it doesn't take a genius to work out that Newcastle are lacking the attacking force that they once had.

The force that almost won them a title until they completely "bottled" it, team and manager. (The famous scene where Kevin Keegan lost it in a sky sports interview is still this writer's favorite premiership moment of madness; Gallas's madness at a Birmingham penalty decision was a close second).

Newcastle's major weakness back then, and still is now, is a totally dis-jointed back four.

A defence so leaky a wooden boat full of wood-worm with a hole the size of a monster-truck tire in the middle would stand more of a chance of conceding less goals! 

So back to 5:15.

The whistle blows and Newcastle make a bright start.

Pressing Manchester and going close with a fantastic cross from James Milner.

But all too often there is no one there to connect and it flashes wide.

This seems to shock Man U into gear and they step it up.

Now Ronaldo is moving forward, Rooney is all over the field and winning the ball, Tevez is causing problems, and Nani is beginning to dance around the Newcastle defence.

In the blink of an eye, Ronaldo gets the ball on the wing, cleverly drags the ball back and flashes in a superb cross only for Rooney to connect and smash the ball home past a despairing Shay Given.

1-0 and Newcastle have decided to fold.

Manchester United are now pressing for the second, passing the ball for fun and making Newcastle look second rate.

Again, the golden boy of Manchester, Ronaldo, made his mark. Carrick putting a through ball into Ronaldo's path which he deftly slid past Shay Given.

2-0 going into half-time.

Whatever Kevin Keegan said to his team at half-time must not of been very encouraging because in the second half, Manchester United continued to dominate and absolutely annihilate a sorry looking Newcastle.

With Shay Given coming off at half-time due to injury (or just fed up with his comical back four putting so much pressure on him week in-week out) Steve Harper , the Newcastle 2nd goalkeeper came on.

To his credit he made a few decent saves, but against the rising tide of Manchester United you could of built a brick wall between the posts and they would of still knocked it down to score.

Again Carrick set up Ronaldo, who ran onto the ball after avoiding being body checked by Steven Taylor, to take it round the stranded Newcastle keeper and make it 3-0.

This rallied Newcastle into a half-hearted attempt at Manchester United goal and in the 79th minute Newcastle won a corner which was converted by Abdoulaye Faye 3-1.

Again Manchester United just shrugged it off and almost took the goal as an insult as they burst forward again, winning a corner that Newcastle failed to clear, and setting Wayne Rooney up for the goal of the game.

A sweet curled shot that left the Newcastle in a all to familiar place...stranded! 4-1.

90 minutes and Newcastle just look like they want to leave the field.

They have had enough: enough of conceding, enough of losing, enough of fans walking out the ground early, enough of the media, but not enough of punishment as Manchester United make it five with a Louis Saha finish to rub salt into the wounds.

So back to the start.

6:45 23/02/2008 and Newcastle are walking off the field thinking "What the heck happened?".

Lets just hope that in the form they are of late, 11 losses and one draw, that on 23/02/2009, the same team are not thinking "What the heck happened...last year we were in the Premiership!"