Luke Hewitson was the star of the first half, despite two goals from Aaron Dwyer, with Newcastle Town putting up stiff opposition.
Celtic opened the scoring in a sweeping move early on. Dwyer spread the ball sixty yards into the path of Darius Osei. Dwyer didn’t stop there though, curving into the box, arriving as Osei’s inch perfect cross, meeting it with precision, diverting the ball past Joe Slinn. Newcastle came back strongly, with Jake Avery’s scorcher off a corner requiring a one-handed flying save from Hewitson. When Cole Lonsdale’s sliding tackle to take the ball away from Avery saw a penalty awarded, Tommy Van Der Laan executed a decent penalty, but Hewitson flew across to palm the ball around the post. From the corner, Hewitson again came to Celtic’s rescue, this time denying Callum Holland. Already into stoppage time, a harsh handball on Max Leonard gave the visitors another chance to draw level, this time Avery with the spot kick, which Hewitson almost stopped with a stuck out foot, but this time Newcastle had equalised from the spot. That lead lasted less than a minute, as Rio Clegg burst into the box, only for Slinn to pull off his own decent stop, one-on-one, at the expense of a corner. Lonsdale’s corner found the head of Dwyer, and his header found the back of the net.
The second half struggled to get going. Celtic played well enough, but some strange decisions made for a disjointed half. With ten minutes remaining, the only real chance for either side came when Ntumba Massanka should have capped off a powerful performance with a goal when Pawel Zuk found him in the box with a threaded ball, but after beating the keeper, somehow fired wide. Despite eight minutes of stoppages, Celtic held firm against intense late pressure from Newcastle, to record their first win since the start of January.
1 | Hewitson, Luke | ||
2 | Zuk, Pawel | ||
3 | Lonsdale, Cole | ||
4 | Leonard, Max | ||
5 | O'Grady, Connor | ||
6 | Hobson, Craig | ||
7 | Dwyer, Aaron | > 53 | |
8 | Robbins, Joseph | ||
9 | Massanka, Ntumba | ||
10 | Osei, Darius | > 77 | |
11 | Clegg, Rio | > 63 | |
12 | Enahoro-Marcus, Darrin | ||
14 | Etia, Jacques | < 63 | |
15 | Byrne, Brad | < 53 | |
16 | Burton, Jordan | < 77 | |
17 | Mugalula, Obua |
1 | Slinn, Joe | ||
2 | Derbyshire, Jack | ||
3 | Ritchie, Ollie | ||
4 | Van Der Laan, Tommy | ||
5 | Jordan, Joshua | ||
6 | Stubbs, Kyle | ||
7 | Holland, Callum | ||
8 | Sherratt, Jack | ||
9 | Avery, Jake | ||
10 | Jones, Thomas | > 72 | |
11 | Twyford, Jacob | > 24 | |
12 | Osbourne, Niall | < 24 | |
13 | Harrison, Daniel | ||
14 | Mazurkiewicz, Patryk | ||
15 | Yahaya, Eric | < 72 |