What a perfect day yesterday turned out to be.
Our performance was absolutely top notch and it was the very definition of the "perfect" away performance imho - that is, we battled until the very end; we looked organised and cohesive as a unit and we defended rather strongly against their attacks (silly fouls outside the box aside). Pardew deserves credit for the way he set us up yesterday - the key was always winning the midfield battle and to essentially play 5 in midfield worked a treat - Tiote, in particular, was beastly and was a main contributor to us dominating Man U's midfield. Defensively, we were really sound with the back 5 performing their roles admirably especially Williamson (all credit to him as well btw for stepping up to the level he's playing now, from a lowly 4th choice CB to basically first choice is no mean feat). Can't really find many faults with any of our players yesterday though admittedly, I was pretty much nervous as f*** after we scored but I suppose that is a reflex reaction. All in all though, no complaints whatsoever.
Another thing I'd like to add from yesterday was watching the game in a Geordie friendly pub in Manchester - I narrowly missed out on tickets for the game but the pub was more than an adequate alternative - it did have Man U fans watching too but that didn't stop me celebrating like a madman when we scored and mocking the Mancs when they had their goal disallowed (in fact, think there were more NUFC fans than Man U fans there!). There's literally nowhere else in Manchester where I could get away with that. Lovely stuff.
Also won £430 in the weekly poker tournament I go to on Saturdays (the first time I've cashed out on a Saturday too!) so aye it was the perfect day yesterday :indi: