Kevin Nolan verdict on Newcastle United | OneFootball

Kevin Nolan signed for Newcastle United in January 2009.

The midfielder (second striker) stayed at St James’ Park for two and a half years.

Before then moving on to West Ham United in June 2011.

Some great memories provided by Kevin Nolan in those two and a half years, not least that hat-trick against the Mackems.

On Monday night, the former player was working for BBC Radio 5 Live.

Now he has been reflecting on what happened with Newcastle United when they met West Ham:

“West Ham got the goals just at the right time.

“Newcastle were on top but they [West Ham] got a fantastic corner from Emerson and Tomas Soucek pops up in the box with a fantastic header.

“They seemed to ride the wave of Newcastle attacks.

“Newcastle missed big opportunities and that’s what you need – when you’re down there, struggling a bit and you haven’t found your mojo, you need those moments of luck. West Ham got it…

“West Ham dealt with Alexander Isak really well, he had opportunities and scored an early goal which was just offside. You never know, if that goes in, that gets the momentum going.

“It’s something which is going to be looked at by Newcastle fans – are they that counter-attacking team that prefers to play teams who are going to be on top of them, or can they break teams down? Because they really struggled in the second half once West Ham went 2-0 up.

“I thought they tried to force things, they struggled to break them down and West Ham did well to keep the clean sheet.”

Issue 252 – 13 November 2010

I think a very good overview from Kevin Nolan.

Newcastle United were much the better team but didn’t take their chances.

West Ham far fewer clear chances and despite the Newcastle dominating ended up 2-0 to the good when taking the couple of chances that came their way.

Then as Newcastle chased the game in the final half hour, West Ham did do well in seeing the win out.