Newcastle United manager, Steve Bruce has lauded his team’s efforts and resilience in marking out Southampton despite the fact they were reduced to ten men at Saint James’s Park.
The Magpies had an emphatic victory over Ralph Hasenhuetti’s men, 3-2 it went in the encounter. Arsenal loanee Joe Willock broke the deadlock at the first sixteen-minute of the first half. Ten minutes after, Miguel Almiron doubled the lead, all assisted by Allan Saint-Maximin.
Liverpool loanee, Takumi Minamino scored his debut for the Saints, just four minutes to the end of the first half, Almiron doubled his first goal for United. The 48th-minute goal by James Ward-Prowse could not even make Southampton salvage a point.
In the second 45 minutes of the match, Newcastle’s Jeff Hendrick bagged the second yellow card which had him sent off from the field after he has pulled down Minamino-he got his first yellow card on the Japanese left-winger at the first eleven minutes.
There were handwritings on the wall for Bruce, as he could just manage a win in 13 Premier League matches as they are on the verge of entering the relegation zone- they are seated in the 16th position on the PL table.
When asked about his comments on the match, he admitted that a coaching role in the English topflight comes with a health hazard.
“A mate of mine said when I took the job that it came with a health hazard,” he started.
“The two minutes just after half-time summed it up, where we could have gone 4-1 up and looked very, very rosy indeed. Instead within a minute, it’s 3-2 and we’re down to 10 men. The last half an hour is awful, to be brutally honest.” He commented
“It’s not often you can hang on with 10 men for half an hour, let alone 25 minutes with nine men. The resilience of the team and the effort and the commitment of them were terrific.” Steve Bruce said
However, the 60-year old coach complained of fatigue suffered by his players due to a lot of matches played between December to January, even now that their striker, Callum Wilson got injured during the match.
“We’re taking one step forward, it seems, and always two back. You can understand why managers were complaining because we were simply playing too much in December and January and most clubs are falling to pieces with it.” He ended
Newcastle continues their Premier League journey against Chelsea on Monday.
