3 Positives and 3 Negatives from Newcastle 2 Rayo Vallecano 1 | OneFootball

Saturday’s match ended Newcastle 2 Rayo Vallecano 1.

A friendly match which saw Newcastle score all three goals, Longstaff and Wood (penalty) putting United 2-0 up, before Matt Targett gave the visitors late hope with an own goal.

Ahead of each match we ask one of our writers to come up with three positives and three negatives following the game.

This time it is John Martin:

POSITIVES

Fitness

It is of course one of the things that Eddie Howe prides himself on.

After the embarrassing Steve Bruce era, with Danny Rose and others saying they had never heard of a manager giving himself and his players so much time off.

Just like the Al-Hilal friendly, Newcastle United once again looking far fitter than the opposition. Bodes well for when the competitive matches start in the cup on Tuesday and then Premier League in eight days time.

Minutes

All 11 Newcastle United first team squad players on show, played 75 minutes or more.

Valuable time on the pitch as preparations accelerate for the return of competitive matches.

Getting match fitness back after this mid-season break was always going to be a tricky one, hopefully the likes of Saturday helped.

It was later explained that the reason for zero first team squad players on the bench, was mainly due to Eddie Howe wanting to give as many players as many minutes as possible. This achieved by a behind closed doors match on the Friday when many of Saturday’s absentees played.

How many?

An astonishing 34,956 paid to watch this friendly kick about.

Back in the day, clubs used to expect the match on the weekend before Christmas to see a lower crowd, due to fans having other commitments ahead of the festive season.

Now we get 35k for this, incredible.

The missing

It was good to hear that the main reason for so many first team squad players missing, was due to Eddie Howe arranging a behind closed doors match on Friday, to allow as many minutes on the pitch as possible.

However, still a concern when it comes to not knowing how many first team squad players didn’t feature in either of the Friday / Saturday games.

Fear of the unknown…

Sloppy

Yes, I know it was a friendly, but frustrating / worrying (up to a point) to see the team’s passing so often on Saturday lead to gifting possession to the opposition.

Hopefully this is where the players can get that kind of thing out of the system, rather than it happening when it really matters.

Injury scare(s)

Kieran Trippier going down after an awkward looking challenge raised concerns. Treatment on the pitch and then limped off. Happily though he did come back on and play another 20 minutes or so.

In the very final stages, Allan Saint-Maximin then doing the same. Despite it being a friendly, ASM showing tenacity to try and force his way through three defenders but then needing treatment on the pitch before limping off.

I think he came back on but didn’t touch the ball in the final seconds. Hopefully ok with so many games coming up.

Final score:

Newcastle 2 Rayo Vallecano 1

Goals: Longstaff 4, Wood pen 68, Targett OG 75

Newcastle team v Rayo Vallecano:

Pope, Trippier (Miley 83), Lascelles, Botman, Targett, Shelvey (Turner-Cooke 76), Longstaff, Willock, Murphy, ASM, Wood (Stephenson 76)

Unused Subs:

Gillespie, Carlyon, Scott, Brookwell, Crossley, Ndiweni, Murphy

Crowd: 34,956

(Rayo Vallecano react after playing in front of Newcastle friendly crowd 3 times bigger than their La Liga games – Read HERE)

(Eddie Howe reflects on Newcastle 2 Rayo Vallecano 1 – Those who played AND those who didn’t – Read HERE)

HERE)