Newcastle United vs Bournemouth. Premier League.
St James' Park, NewcastleAttendance44,424.
Report and highlights as Newcastle record two successive league wins for the first time since April
Saturday 9 November 2019 19:20, UK
Ciaran Clark scored the winner as Newcastle came from behind to beat Bournemouth 2-1 at St James' Park.
Bournemouth took a 14th-minute lead when on-loan Liverpool winger Harry Wilson swept home after a clever short-corner routine.
However, Newcastle drew level three minutes before the break thanks to a flying header from DeAndre Yedlin, although only after a VAR check had confirmed the American right back was just onside.
The home side claimed all three points, though, when Clark toe-poked home from close range seven minutes into the second half, the centre back's 10th goal for Newcastle, but his first that was not a header.
As a result, Newcastle - who were following up their 3-2 win at West Ham last weekend - move up to 11th in the Premier League after registering back-to-back league victories for the first time since April, while Bournemouth stay in seventh.
Taking charge of his 916th game, Newcastle boss Steve Bruce was looking to record his first win as a manager over Bournemouth, although it did not start well for his side.
The visitors opened the scoring just before the quarter-hour mark after catching their opponents out with a well-worked short corner involving Ryan Fraser and Joshua King, before the former picked out the unmarked Wilson in the box. And the Wales international kept his cool to side-foot the ball into the bottom left-hand corner of the net.
But Newcastle responded in brilliant fashion to that early setback, firstly equalising just before the break when Yedlin somehow managed to get his head on to Allan Saint-Maximin's deflected shot.
The hosts turned the match on its head when, from a left-wing corner, Federico Fernandez rose highest to head the ball into the six-yard box for his fellow centre-back Clark to convert.
Bruce's side had several chances to further extend their lead, only for a combination of poor finishing and some outrageous bad luck - particularly when Miguel Almiron's goalbound shot hit Saint-Maximin on the ground - to make for an uncomfortable last few minutes for the home faithful.
Steve Bruce: "The one thing you want is competition and Ciaran, who was probably questioning… There were times when I didn't pick him in the squad, like today - I'm leaving out people like (Javi) Manquillo, who's done nothing wrong, (Yoshinori) Muto, who's done nothing wrong.
"It's the difficult part of it. All you can say to them is, 'Take your chance', and Ciaran is the prime example of it. He's done remarkably well coming from nowhere. I'm delighted for him.
"He trains every day, works hard every day, great pro and when you see somebody getting the winner like he did from where he was probably six weeks ago not travelling with us, fair play to him."
Eddie Howe: "We're hugely frustrated and disappointed with that. We started the game so well, created a number of chances, looked in a really good place, scored a great goal.
"But then we made some uncharacteristic errors and just gave Newcastle the encouragement they needed to get back into the match.
"I thought Josh had got a really good chance to score there and unfortunately it goes the wrong side of the post."
"Bournemouth started pretty brightly and went ahead with a fantastic set-piece move, with Harry Wilson finishing it off with his left foot. And you thought at that point it was going to be a long afternoon for Newcastle.
"But no, they stuck at it, got their equaliser just before half-time thanks to Yedlin's flying header. And that gave them a big lift going in at half-time and they got the winner just after half-time with Clark's scrappy goal.
"From that point on, Bournemouth struggled in terms of trying to create clear-cut chances - they had the majority of the possession in the game, but Newcastle still had more attempts on target and on goal with just 33 per cent possession."
It is safe to say that, heading into this clash, the jury was very much still out on Newcastle's summer recruit from Nice.
The France forward, 22, had still to open his account for Bruce's side, but despite that not changing against Bournemouth, the player still produced an impressive display that will have delighted the home fans.
Not only did the new boy create his team's equaliser for Yedlin to crucially put them back on level terms just before the break, but he was also desperately unlucky not to kill the match off sooner by grabbing a debut goal in the second half.
Newcastle take on Aston Villa at Villa Park on November 25, with that clash live on Sky Sports Premier League on Monday Night Football (8pm).
Meanwhile, Bournemouth face Wolves at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday November 23 (3pm).
