2 good, 2 bad from Newcastle 3-1 West Ham

Newcastle United closed out the final game at St James’ Park this season with a ruthless (in spells) 3-1 win over relegation candidates West Ham United.

 United were free-flowing in attack during the best opening half hour we’ve seen in months. With players playing in positions more natural to them, things seemed to click.

Perhaps the extra hours on the training ground have finally helped, but there will always be questions to ask about the quality of the opposition, as West Ham barely resembled a side who were scrapping for their lives at the bottom of the table, such was their passivity.

The goals came via a William Osula brace, Nick Woltemade's volley and a stunning Castellanos strike for the visitors to spoil our clean sheet.

Here’s my two good and two bad from the game:

Good: Crisp passing and fluid football

Incisive, quick, one touch; all the things United have been missing in build-up play for the last two-and a-bit months, they brought to the party on Sunday. The move that led to Osula’s first goal was, genuinely, one of the best passing passages of play the team have produced this season, and it was a refreshing sight after the struggles to create much of anything in recent matches.

Woltemade’s goal came via a sharp bit of thinking and an interception from Barnes and Osula’s second was in much the same vein, with Willock nipping in ahead of the West Ham player from a throw in before bursting forward and swapping passes with the Dane to set him up.

Ramsey was excellent too, with some excellent touches in tight areas, and his passing selection was top drawer too. And it’s no surprise that our uptick has coincided with Bruno’s return as captain as he just oozes class and is the best technical midfielder we have in the squad.

Bad: Too little, too late

For all the positives, I can’t have been the only one watching on thinking “where was this six weeks ago?” and a hyper critic would point out that it’s easy to play like that when there isn’t much riding on the result.

Of course, the opposite of that is to do what West Ham did who just crumbled under the pressure and basically rolled over and let their bellies be tickled. The Castellanos banger aside, it’s clear why they are staring down the barrel of the Championship next weekend and have robbed the country of the ultimate laugh of seeing Spurs relegated.

There is the tiniest outside chance of United nipping into ninth spot and possibly (if many things go certain ways) of stealing Europa Conference League football from this dismal season, and it just goes to show how costly the late concession against Forest could be, because if we’d just held on there, it would be all to play for (in a manner of speaking) next Sunday.

Good: An effective front two (or 9 and 10)

It’s funny what playing players in their natural positions can do eh? For months we’ve had to endure Big Nick in midfield where he’s been pretty ineffective, and his first outing back in the ten role was pretty underwhelming last weekend, but he was back using he technical quality in the right areas of the pitch against West Ham and at times they looked flummoxed with how to deal with him.

His link up with Will Osula offered a glimmer of promise for next season, and with two natural fullbacks and our younger pair of central defenders, we looked generally solid at the back too.

A shout out to Sven Botman who played a few line splitting passes and looked more like the hot talent we signed from Lille than he has at any point over the past two seasons, and the balance of having the correct footed FB’s on their natural sides was (I think) clear for all to see, with most of the awkwardness we saw from the Forest match replaced with some excellent attacking moves.

Bad: Last game for a few?

The post-match lap of honour was muted, but there were lots of renditions of the terrace anthems for certain players who have more than likely played their last games for the club. Krafth, Schar, and Tripps were the big ones, although there’s nothing been confirmed with regard to the Swiss. Gordon and Sandro seemed quiet too, but the Italian came off with an injury so he may have been more concerned with that than anything else.

Trippier got the send-off he deserved with a fitting display from Wor Flags and he genuinely departs as a club legend and whilst the ovation for Krafth was nice, for a lad to be at the club seven year and only make just over one hundred appearances, you do have to question the wisdom of offering him a new deal last summer.

There was also plenty of support for Eddie Howe but there was an atmosphere of this being the final hurrah for many in the group and once Fulham is out of the way next weekend, I would expect some to move on pretty quickly, and the summer to be a roller coaster of a ride in the transfer market.

Keep the faith. HWTL