Steven Taylor has appealed to Newcastle United’s disgruntled supporters, asking them to keep faith with Alan Pardew’s team in the wake of a fourth straight Tyne-Wear derby defeat against Sunderland.
Sunday’s 1-0 reverse at St James’ Park means Pardew has become the first Newcastle manager to concede four consecutive north-east derbies but Taylor and his team-mates are desperate to compensate at Manchester United on Boxing Day.
“Please stick with us,” said the centre-half as he contemplated the fallout from Adam Johnson’s 90th-minute winner. “This has hurt – and we are going to try to make up for it at Old Trafford. It was a horrible feeling coming off the pitch. We were devastated. The lads are hurting, the fans are hurting but we can’t dwell on it – we have to put it right at Manchester United.”
Pardew’s side have already beaten Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool this season and they won at Old Trafford last year, but Taylor knows repeating that feat will not be straightforward.
“It’s going to be difficult with the players they have like Rooney, Van Persie and Di María,” he said. “They have top-class players all over the pitch but we will give it our best. We will need everyone putting their bodies on the line and hopefully redeem the derby.
“We can recover. It will be touch-and-go at Manchester United but we’ve proved we can do it against the big boys. Hopefully it will be a turning point for us.”
Taylor arguably exceeded the call of duty when an attempted headed clearance resulted in his colliding with a post and requiring stitches near an eye. “It’s quite a hard post,” he said. “And it definitely won. I’ve got a bit of a headache but I’m more devastated about losing to Sunderland. It hurts.
“It’s a disappointing result but we weren’t clinical. I think we probably deserved a draw but we ended up getting done on the counterattack from our own set piece.
“We didn’t get many chances but in the first half we played straight into their hands, giving, I think, seven free-kicks away. If there’s one thing you can’t do against a Sunderland side with a back four all over 6ft 2in, it’s that, because it just makes defending difficult.”
Pardew had warned his players they would be particularly vulnerable if Sunderland broke from a set play only to watch in horror as Gus Poyet’s team counterattacked following a late home corner and Johnson scored.
“We’d looked at it,” said Taylor. “We knew they would be a risk from our own set pieces and that is exactly what happened. We have to address that situation because it can’t happen again.”
Despite a result which in previous years could well have provoked ugly post-match scenes, Northumbria police were delighted a truce between rival fans held, while their new, more mature “softly, softly” approach to crowd control proved a success. Only 17 arrests were made on an overwhelmingly good-natured afternoon which passed without major incident or significant disruption. Chief superintendent Steve Neill, the match commander, subsequently thanked both sets of supporters for their “patience and cooperation”.
