Newcastle United beat Hellas Verona 2-0 at St. James’ Park this afternoon.
Newcastle rounded off their pre-season preparations with a 2-0 home win over Serie A side Hellas Verona at St. James’ Park this afternoon, as Rafael Benitez looks to prepare for next weekend’s opening day clash against Tottenham.
The Magpies have enjoyed a decent pre-season so far, and that came to an end with today’s victory as some fans got to see new signings in action for the first time ahead of the new Premier League season.
Newcastle took an early lead over Verona as Jonjo Shelvey unpicked the defence, finding Javier Manquillo down the right hand side, and the full back whipped a cross in for Ayoze Perez to turn the ball home for 1-0.
Eight minutes later, Verona couldn’t deal with a raking pass from Shelvey, and hesitant defending allowed winger Christian Atsu in on goal, with the Ghanaian smashing the ball into the roof of the net from a tight angle.
Newcastle pushed for more goals but it stayed 2-0, and they will now hope for a similar result when they take on Tottenham next weekend in their first Premier League game of the season.
Whilst new signings such as Florian Lejeune and Mikel Merino have impressed fans, some weren’t quite so sure about the addition of Spanish full back Javier Manquillo from Atletico Madrid, given that he struggled on loan at North East rivals Sunderland last season.
However, Manquillo turned in a solid performance against Verona on Sunday afternoon, prompting positive reactions from Newcastle fans on Twitter after the final whistle.
Some feel that Benitez’s decision to sign Manquillo is somewhat justified, as he got forward well to support the attack against Verona and was ultimately much better than many expected based on the views of Sunderland fans.
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