Newcastle United comfortably saw off the challenge of Hull City at the MKM Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The Magpies took on the Tigers in Hull on Saturday as Newcastle got their pre-season friendlies underway with a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Alexander Isak and Jacob Murphy.
Newcastle have had a couple of behind-closed-doors friendlies but the game at Hull was our first look at Newcastle United since the embarrassing 8-0 drubbing in Australia.
Eddie Howe put out the strongest side he could in the first half which included four full-backs playing in various positions.
We were very impressed with Lewis Hall against Hull
We had wondered which one of the four would be pushed into midfield and it turned out to be “new signing” Lewis Hall after making his season-long loan from Chelsea permanent.
Hall floated around the midfield spraying passes left and right, short and long and getting involved in the Newcastle attack.
We saw at the end of last season that he’d definitely been paying attention in training and working hard to play his way into Howe’s thoughts and today’s showing at Hull will have done him no harm at all.
Hall is brimming with potential
Yes, it’s just a pre-season friendly against a Championship side, but he can only play against what’s in front of him and he carved through Hull like they weren’t even there.
His performance was only really matched by that of Jacob Murphy who looked sharp as a tack putting several balls into the box which really should have led to goals. He did provide the assist for Isak who made a brilliant defence-splitting run to get a toe on the end of Murphy’s cross to poke home.
Murphy then doubled the lead a few minutes later in bizarre circumstances. Once again, out on the right, Murphy swept in a low cross that was begging for a touch but it didn’t get one which actually caused the Hull ‘keeper total confusion who, along with his defence, just watched as the ball went past everyone and dribbled into the back of the net.
But back to Lewis Hall: When Eddie Howe has a full squad there won’t be room in the midfield for Hall so if the 19-year-old wants to start regularly he’ll have to make that left-back spot his own, and that means we’ll have to see more from him defensively, which was always Howe’s reservations about using him, but if he can master that side of his game, he’s going to be a huge star guaranteed.
