A floodlit drenched St James' Park hosted Newcastle United versus Northampton Town in the Capital One Cup second round. A minute silence was perfectly respected prior to kick-off to pay tribute to the Worthing United footballers, Matthew Grimstone and Jacob Schilt who were killed in the Shoreham Airshow plane crash. Both teams seemed galvanised by the tribute. Within eight minutes, the Magpies were two goals up with strikes from debutant Florian Thauvin and a fitter looking Siem de Jong. Two minutes later Marc Richards pulled one back from the penalty spot, it sprung the away end into life with a chorus of "Premier League, you're having a laugh, Premier League you're having a laugh." Newcastle responded to the criticism and proved their Premier League status with goals from Daryl Janmaat and Mike Williamson in the second half. More importantly both assists yet again came from Thauvin who introduced himself to St James' Park with a show-stopping performance before being replaced by Aleksandar Mitrovic after 65 minutes. A confident showing justified Steve McClaren's strong team selection and a 4-1 scoreline was thoroughly deserved. The Magpies were well disciplined, tactically intelligent and despite a few defensive vulnerabilities early on, they recovered well. It might only have been the second round of the Capital One Cup but 26,923 people will get to say they saw Florian Thauvin's first home game live - and he was brilliant.
NCTJ-accredited football writer with an MA in Sports Journalism. What Culture football editor. Write for the official Newcastle United programme. Former video reporter at North News. Featured and published in the Sunderland Echo, Shields Gazette, Mail Online, The Mirror, The Sun and others.
