Key events
57 min Fernandez releases Cucurella, whose chipped cross is too close to Pope.
Chelsea have done okay in the second half. If they can keep it at 1-0 until the last 10 minutes, St James’ Park will start to get very jittery.
56 min Tomorrow I shall kill again, this time in Dungeness.
55 min: Newcastle substitution Lewis Miley replaces Sven Botman, which presumably means a return to 4-3-3. Botman isn’t injured, there’s nothing to worry about, they’re just managing his minutes after such an injury-hit season.
54 min “Regarding Simon Dobinson’s message pre-kick-off, I’ve noticed a lot of this kind of chat, and not just from keyboard folk but also people talking on podcasts who, in my opinion, should know better,” says Jon Collin. “Brighton are a pretty small club in the scheme of things, they hadn’t been in the top division for all of my lifetime (i.e. a pretty long time) and now are established there.
“They have at least seven enormous clubs above them who exist on a different financial planet. They spent a lot of money last summer but that was earned by several seasons of coining it selling the choicest fruits of their Belgian talent lab to e.g. Chelsea. Now people are going to pi$$ and whine because they ‘only’ finish in the top half. Disband the internet.”
Can I? Can I really? WILL I GET THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?
53 min Schar fouls Fernandez and is booked. Newcastle need to be careful here; they’ve been a bit passive at the start of the second half and are allowing Chelsea into the game.
52 min Livramento seems to be okay. When he first went down it looked like he’d injured his ACL.
51 min The match has been so one-sided that you almost forget it’s still only 1-0. A decent spell of Chelsea possession is a reminder that the job isn’t done yet.
49 min Chelsea are actually playing with James as part of a back three. And he has just eased Gordon to the floor in the area, prompting another unsuccessful penalty appeal from the home fans. Replays show it was a lean rather than a shove.
48 min He’s on his feet and ready to come back on. That’s very good news because the way his knee jolted when he landed look really nasty.
47 min Tino Livramento landed nastily after an aerial challenge with Neto and has stayed down. It’s a problem with his right knee and the physio is on. They’re trying to flex his knee to test his ACL.
46 min Chelsea have made a half-time substitution: the club captain Reece James is on for Noni Madueke, which means Caicedo will move into midfield in a 4-4-1 formation. Enzo Fernandez is playing from the left with Neto on the right and Palmer up front.
The Premier League table as things stand
The match between Nottingham Forest and Chelsea on the final day is becoming bigger by the day.
Premier League clockwatch
There are three games kicking off at 2.15pm, including a vital game for Nottingham Forest at Leicester. If Newcastle win, Forest will move back into the top five with victory in that game.
Sarah Rendell has all the team news and buildup.
“I’m all for the benefit of the doubt with swinging arms hitting a player behind as you have eyes on the ball and use your arms to jump and for leverage, etc,” says Hugh Molloy. “However, that all goes out of the window when you visually line a player up and no intent for the ball, definite red.”
I’d argue it’s a bit more nuanced than that. I don’t have oodles of sympathy for Jackson in this case – but you can, in the parlance of our time, do someone without looking. Equally, you can line them up and give them nothing more than a mildly erotic nostril tickle.
But yeah, the look betrays intent of some kind so he was asking for bother. The TNT pundits, Joe Cole and Peter Crouch, both think it was a red card.
“The Chelsea ‘All-At-C’ back four is entertaining, sure,” says Matt Dony. “But it’s hardly Young Fish Costa Fortune.”
A reference from the early 2000s, Matt? Why so modern?
Half time: Newcastle 1-0 Chelsea
Caicedo, Palmer and a couple of other Chelsea players have words with the referee at half-time. The reality is that they were being outplayed, outsmarted and outrun even before Nicolas Jackson was given a straight red for a forearm smash on Sven Botman.
Sandro Tonali scored in the second minute and bar some promising runs from Pedro Neto, all the threat has come from Newcastle. Tactically, the first half was exactly as Eddie Howe planned.
45+6 min A long free-kick is touched back towards the near post by Livramento. Barnes nips in front of Sanchez and pokes wide. The angle made it a nigh-on impossible chance.
45+5 min Enzo Fernandez is booked for dissent after querying a foul on Gordon by Palmer. Chelsea’s collective noggin isn’t far form going up like a balloon.
45+4 min Neto leads a Chelsea break, running half the length of the field before his shot from the angle is blocked by Botman. Burn couldn’t stay with Neto but did lean on him just enough to slow Neto down and allow Botman to get across.
45+1 min Tonali cuts the ball back to Isak, whose first touch takes the ball away from Cucurella. But it’s all very congested and Sanchez is able to stop Isak getting a shot in.
Six minutes of added time. Against 11 men and 10, Newcastle have been just brilliant.
44 min The resulting corner leads to a header from Burn that is easily saved by Sanchez. Not much of a chance.
Brilliant tackle from Chalobah
43 min Murphy (I think) fires a pass into Guimaraes 20 yards from goal. He opens his body to angle a perfectly weighted first-time pass through to Barnes, whose shot on the run is blocked at source by the flying Chalobah. That’s really good defending. And the pass from Guimaraes was gorgeous.
42 min “Newcastle’s back three/four/five chameleon routine really did a number on Jackon’s headspace,” says Chris Paraskevas. “He found himself isolated against one or two of the centre-backs almost every time, and lost most duels. And when the ball squirmed free someone in black and white picked up the scraps.
“A pseudo-gegenpress/anti-football/Reverse WM cocktail. Another masterclass from Eddie (and a good thing he didn’t take my advice about Dan Burn as a left back!)”
40 min Out of nothing Chelsea produce their best chance. A low cross from the left reaches Neto, whose first-time shot is crucially blocked by the lunging Burn. I used to think Burn was more mouth than trousers; it’s nice to admit I was completely wrong. He’s been fantastic this season.
39 min Lavia is warned by the referee after fouling Guimaraes. Enzo Maresca is having an animated chat with the fourth official; in fact Maresca has just been booked.
As bad as this is for Chelsea – and it’s bad you know – they are pretty much guaranteed to finish in the top five if they win their last two games against Man Utd and Nottingham Forest.
38 min “I’ll see your 13 five-a-side goals and raise them to the 33 I scored just yesterday,” says Tim Woods. “My six-year-old was totally outclassed and I think he’d say the same himself.”
37 min A mighty header from Dan Burn swerves just wide of the far post. He was offside, so it wouldn’t have counted, but it was almost a mirror image of his goal against Liverpool in the cup final.
Nicolas Jackson is sent off!
36 min That’s a huge moment, and it means Jackson will be suspended for the lat two games of the season as well. It was a routine aerial challenge just past the halfway line. Jackson looked over his shoulder and then administered a forearm smash on Botman. I’m still not sure it’s worse than, say Tyrone Mings’ elbow yesterday, but as Roy Keane always says, don’t give the referee a chance to send you off.
The referee is going to the monitor!
35 min Nicolas Jackson is in abundant bother.
VAR check for a possible red card
33 min Jackson flattens Botman and is booked. It was a stiff arm to the face, in fact, and VAR are checking this. Not quite enough for a red is my instinct; it was a straight arm rather than an elbow.
30 min Caicedo again fouls Gordon, this time a gratuitous if relatively soft kick from behind. He’s very lucky he hasn’t been booked.
28 min Palmer tries a very imaginative long pass, designed to put Madueke through on goal. Murphy tracks his run and ushers the ball through to Pope.
Chelsea are having a lot more of the ball now, though it’s largely with Newcastle’s permission. The contrast in styles is really fascinating.
