Newcastle began life without Yohan Cabaye with a trip to Carrow Road, this combined with injury to Yoan Gouffran saw Sammy Ameobi and Hatem Ben Arfa re-introduced to the starting eleven. The visitors played well throughout, but generally failed to penetrate the Canaries' defence, and on the occasions that they did the woodwork resolved to stop them, blocking two attempts from Rémy. An otherwise quite drab game suddenly flared up when with 10 minutes to go Rémy and Norwich's Johnson were involved in a tussle, ending in Rémy moving to touch foreheads and provoking a comical reaction from Johnson who threw himself to the ground. Both players were sent off, only for their teams to appeal the suspensions, with Norwich doing so successfully while Newcastle were rejected, the FA then charged both teams with failing to control their players, resulting in a £20k fine for Newcastle and £30k for Norwich, who failed their appeal for this charge; all in all another case of staggeringly consistent inconsistency from the FA.
Our man of the match was Hatem Ben Arfa (7.27), who seized his return to a starting berth and took the game to Norwich from the off, albeit without ultimately creating or scoring a goal. It's no surprise that Shola Ameobi (4.89) continued his trend of earning mug of the match for his 15 minute cameo, after being subbed on for the far more popular and effective Ben Arfa only to lose possession at least 4 times without doing anything of note. The Pardew and team average ratings of 6.12 and 6.48 respectively show that generally fans were pleased with the performance, if a little disappointed by the result which could have so easily been a convincing win if luck had been on our side.
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(You can click on player names to go to their pages)
Krul - 7.25 Ratings ranged between 7 and 8"Did well with two key saves."
"Never looked like being beaten. Except, er, that time he was beaten and it hit the cross bar."
"Did well with what he had to do, a couple of crucial saves, but hardly threatened for half of the game."
Debuchy - 6.88 Ratings ranged between 6 and 7.5
"Solid but not as effective going forward without Cabaye to pick him out."
"Still a beast at the back but seemed to have lost some of his attacking "bite" going forward today. Made a couple of clumsy errors to that effect."
"Solid, unremarkable. Chance creation not up to this season's high standard."
Williamson - 6.73 Ratings ranged between 5.5 and 8
"Pretty solid, didn't have much to do, though got lucky on a couple of occasions."
"Brick wall, good solid performance and was there to pick up the pieces."
"Fine. Lucky to get away with one or two offside decisions."
Taylor - 6.50 Ratings ranged between 5.5 and 7
"I was shaking with fury when I saw he was in the team ahead of Mapou but he did well."
"Never really did much wrong (for a change) but I believe Williamson over-shone Taylor."
"Similar to Williamson, but without the errors."
Santon - 6.35 Ratings ranged between 4 and 7
"Got forward well, not really threatened at the back."
"Good getting forward, many will criticize his shooting but he's not on the pitch to score."
"Much better from him but he shouldn't be taking any sort of set-piece."
Anita - 6.27 Ratings ranged between 6 and 7
"Some great passing but looked a little off the pace at time and gave the ball away more often than usual."
"I thought he was good picking up the pieces in the middle, passing let him down somewhat."
"Seemed like the game was going a little ahead of him - he kept making passes into nowhere. However, had a good game and provides a little bit of creativity which is sometimes needed. Would like to see him take a shot every now and again."
Tioté - 6.38 Ratings ranged between 6 and 8
"Didn't look as good without Cabaye, and was trying to do a bit too much with the ball."
"Got stuck in and made up for Anita's lack of presence in the middle but he gave the ball away far too much."
"A good bruising performance in the midfield, limited by some horrendous passing and tracking back. I'm glad to see he seems to have got over his wanton shooting."
Ben Arfa - 7.27 (MOTM) Ratings ranged between 6 and 8
"Not such a good 2nd half but very good in the first, wasted the best chance of the game."
"Excellent first half with actual passes! Did what any player better than his team-mates would do in the second half and tried to do it all himself which was a massive detriment to us."
"Some great balls to cut through Norwich, just missing that extra little bit to his game though."
Sissoko - 6.23 Ratings ranged between 5 and 7
"Had some great openings but he never looks confident when he gets the ball. I'm sure he's a distance runner and not a footballer."
"More headless chicken stuff interspersed with decent runs and passing, but I think it was epitomised best by his run on goal when he stopped and tried to pass."
"All power, little skill. Should've put through Remy when they were 2 on 2, instead held on to it and allowed players to get back. Needs a rest."
Sammy - 7.15 Ratings ranged between 6.5 and 8
"Good game first half nice and direct, knackered second half."
"Much better than I expected from him, pretty skillful, didn't do much wrong."
"Good performance. Hopefully he becomes a valuable part of our squad. I've been one of the few to always have faith in him. Some of his runs were really impressive and his crossing was better than I remembered. Remy appeared to have little faith in him though, rarely making runs when Sammy had the ball."
Rémy - 5.85 Ratings ranged between 4 and 7
"Not his day. Extremely unlucky. Hit the woodwork twice and got sent off through some play acting."
"Did okay but stupid red card, it was avoidable. He was unlucky not to score though. His absence opens up a chance to LDJ and Papiss."
"Evidence as to why he should start out the left rather than through the middle, every time he attacked from the left (granted, one was from a FK) we hit the woodwork. His touch and decision making isn't sharp enough to play as the lone striker. Definitely not a red card. Would be hard to find anyone who wouldn't have reacted the same way to being shoved."
Shola - 4.89 Ratings ranged between 4 and 6
"I can only recall him getting the ball a handful of times, all of which he used to kill the momentum of our attacks and slow the game down to his pace."
"Came on to do a job, was decent at it. Pards settled for the point though after we went down to ten, we were booting balls at Shola with one player within 10 yards of him. That's not really how target men work. Gets an extra half point for taking on about 6 Norwich players single-handedly after the Remy/Johnson incident."
"Shola."
Pardew - 6.12 Ratings ranged between 5 and 8
"Good first 11, unlucky not to go ahead, not a great bench tbf, but Haidara was a poor decision."
"Screwed over by Cabaye leaving/Cisse and Gouffran's injuries. If you put Gouffran in for Sammy (although he played well) that's probably our strongest post-Cabaye XI. What does he say at half time though?"
"Odd game that. Absolutely dominated and were unlucky not to win. Should have had it wrapped up by half time. One complaint is what the f*** is he doing taking a winger off for a LB when we had just lost our striker and were chasing a winner?"
"Same old story, great first half, but sat back in the second for no reason. Didn't really have anything on the bench to make a difference with."
"He can't make the strikers but the ball in the net. We set up to attack and played some lovely football. We seemed to start the second half limply and neither substitution made much sense but he didn't have much to choose from."
"Couldn't have really asked for too much more if we're honest. It is easy to criticise him but he put out an attacking team that looked well up for it and it was only through bad luck that we didn't win the game."
"Looking past the Cabaye scenario he named a decent XI for the game was chuffed to see Sammy start. Would have liked to see Adam Armstrong get a bit of time on the pitch but probably wasnt the right game for it as it was quite intense near the end. He needs to get them working on their finishing for the weekend because we need to take every chance we get against the unwashed."
"Admittedly it wasn't his fault that the team failed to score in the first half, but nevertheless he should have ensured that performance was kept up in the second half. I think that all things considered with Cabaye and stuff, it would have been far too easy to let this game turn into a humiliating collapse but the team was well-picked and it was good to see HBA getting a go. I would honestly sooner have put Armstrong on over Shola though. This stupid thing of putting two left backs on the bench as well..."
