Ciaran Clark's own goal gifts QPR a point and denies Newcastle top spot in the Championship
Newcastle 2 Queens Park Rangers 2: Clark's late own goal ensured the spoils were shared at St James' Park
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Your support makes all the difference.A huge own goal; that just about summed up January for Newcastle United and so their players carried the club’s message onto the field at the start of February.
At the beginning of the 90th minute Newcastle were top of the Championship and looking to override a genuinely traumatic period in which the long-term future of their manager Rafa Benitez has been cast into doubt.
Then they led two-one.
In the blink of an eye the club can turn. By the end of the 90th minute Ciaran Clark, culpable for Queens Park Rangers’ first goal as well, inexplicably looped a harmless cross from Kazenga LuaLua, a former Newcastle reserve, over the head of Karl Darlow and into his own net.
Benitez span on his heels in rage, as he has for much of the last four weeks, incapable of comprehending what he had just seen, and returned to the Newcastle dugout to brood. There will be more of that to come as well.
Out of the cups and second top of the table. There was a time when that mandate would have been enough, but there is a strange wind blowing through St James’ Park. Benitez expected new players. None arrived. His first choice, Andros Townsend, fell through as the window closed.
When the moment came for new energy wide in his front line, in the 66th minute, he was forced to turn to Sammy Ameobi.
Ameobi has just returned to Tyneside after a loan spell with Bolton. Last season he was at Cardiff. Townsend has England caps. These are things which annoys ambitious managers. Benitez had wanted to build on momentum with a £30 million profit he had made in the summer. It did not come.
In fairness to Ameobi, he did not do too badly. The second half belonged to Newcastle, when he was on. They were fluent then, attacking the Gallowgate End, building a head of steam, as they had threatened to do in the first minute of the game.
Just 38 seconds had passed when Newcastle swept into the lead. Isaac Hayden has been a fine signing, and his run and cross was cleared to the edge of the Queens Park Rangers penalty area. From there Shelvey volleyed in and a crowd in excess of 47,000 waited for a repeat of the six-nil massacre earlier this season at Loftus Road. It did not come.
Instead there came confidence from the visitors. Massimo Luongo went close twice and Pawel Wszolek shot wide before a shot from Jake Tidwell was controlled and then finished by Connor Washington, on the stroke of half-time. Grumblings grew.
There were curious moments in the second half, Shelvey appeared to aim a kick after a challenge and Joel Lynch stood on the back of Ameobi but went unpunished and all the while was a nervous, restless energy, that sometimes beats at the heart of the club.
Still, Newcastle were making chances and spurning them and the game should have been won and they should have returned to the Championship summit.
It was self inflicted that they did not.
Ayoze Perez, substituted to end his misery, twice spurned excellent chances when put clear through. With quarter of an hour remaining he was sent through by Hayden. He took his time and shot straight at Alex Smithies. In the 82nd minute the same player was once more sent galloping away and this time, confidence dually smashed, attempted a woeful cross that almost resulted in a throw-in. Smithies denied Yoan Gouffran with 20 minutes left and then Jamaal Lascelles shot weakly wide from a fine position.
They felt big misses at the time, and, with the clock running into injury-time, LuaLua crossed to nothing and Clark looped a header over his own goalkeeper and fell to his knees in anguish.
There was still time for Newcastle to fashion one more fine chance, in the fourth and final minute of injury-time, when Gouffran turned and shot from a tight angle. Smithies could only divert the ball into the path of Mo Diame. The midfielder could not get their first. Danger was cleared. Newcastle, amid unrest, remain second.
Newcastle (4-2-3-1): Darlow; Yedlin, Lascelles, Clark, Dummett; Hayden, Shelvey; Ritchie, Perez (Diame 86), Gouffran; Murphy (Ameobi 66).
QPR (5-3-2): Smithies; Furlong (Goss 81), Onuoha, Perch, Lynch, Bidwell; Wszolek, Luongo, Manning (Freeman 66); Mackie (LuaLua 74), Washington.
Ref: Mr Tim Robinson
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