3 Positives and 3 Negatives to take from Burnley 1 Newcastle 3

It ended Burnley 1 Newcastle 3.

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

An interesting game at Turf Moor…

Plenty to talk about after this one.

On this occasion it is The Armchair Fan.

POSITIVES

Result

Newcastle won the match 3-1 and quite frankly that’s the most (only) important thing.

This really was a must win game for a number of reasons and I would have settled for a scrappy 1-0.

In the end, it was an entertaining match from start to finish with a number of chances for both teams and, crucially, three points for the Toon.

Goals, goals, goals

Three or more goals in a league match for just the second time all season.

Wild celebrations in the stands were replicated in my living room, as the Toon threatened to go goal crazy!

In fact, this was the fastest time we’d ever gone 2-0 up in a Premier League game, with Joelinton and Wissa both getting on the score sheet in the opening six minutes.

Brilliant stuff, let’s have more of the same on Sunday.

Back with a bang

How good was it to see Joelinton back in the starting line up?

Almost as good as it was when he opened the scoring after just sixty-six seconds.

His physicality has been missed recently and he made an instant impact on his return.

NEGATIVES

Mid-match crises

We don’t half know how to make things uncomfortable for ourselves!

At 2-0 up we should have been cruising and attacking at will, instead we allowed Burnley back into the match and were almost punished with what would have been a catastrophic equaliser.

A better team than Burnley would have punished us despite the early two-goal advantage and that’s one of the reasons we’ve dropped so many points from winning positions.

Performance

What was going on in that second half?!

At one point I was watching through my fingers!

We invited way too much pressure and had to ride our luck to an alarming extent, thankfully when Nick Pope was beaten the ball bounced back off the crossbar, but this was a tough watch with the final whistle being greeted with relief rather than euphoria.

League table

Despite the win, we’re still stuck hovering around mid-table. If we’re serious about European qualification (especially for the Champions League), this has to be the start of a run of wins that fires us into the upper echelons of the table.