The Magpies stole all three points thanks to Mikel Merino’s header five minutes from time to deny the Eagles a deserved draw as a minimum, and after the game Hodgson revealed his pleasure in the performance shown by his team, but also his disappointment it didn’t add to their points tally.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, talked about a number of issues, including
The mood in the camp: “There’s no point in feeling hard-done-by; football is like that. You don’t always get what you deserve. I would have been more disappointed had the performance had not as been as good as I would have anticipated it to be, so when you give a good performance you always hope that you get your reward but on this occasion we didn’t.”
Missing out on a draw: “It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve seen a team I’ve coached do well enough to get a good result and not get it. The important thing for me is that the players, who are bitterly disappointed at the moment, don’t allow their confidence to drop which was boosted by the win against Chelsea. There were so many aspects of our play and periods in the game where we did more than enough to come away from St James’ Park with a win today.
“The thing we have to do as coaches and managers is not divorce the performance from the result and you can’t stop believing – if you give good performances you will get good results and when you give a good performance that you have a possibility of a result, but it’s not a given. Last week we gave a good performance and got a win, and in my opinion we gave a good performance today and got a defeat.”
Loftus-Cheek/Van Aanholt’s late chance: “I don’t think it was a turning point but it was a chance for us to win the game, but he [Loftus-Cheek] dragged his shot and Van Aanholt coming in at the far post couldn’t get a foot on it. It would have been nice if we could have scored that one because that would definitely have given us a positive result even if they had equalised.
“But at 0-0, anything can happen and it happened to us at a corner kick – watching the replay we were unlucky that the header cannons into Merino off McArthur and whizzes past our goalkeeper, so that was a further piece of bad luck.”
Positives: “The encouragement is the work that these players are putting in on a weekly basis on the training field. I am definitely seeing signs of them understanding what we are trying to do and play. We’re getting some players back - Zaha is a massive boost and Benteke isn’t too far away, so there are signs on the horizon that our squad will get stronger.
“There are 29 games to go; we’ve beaten the champions and come here against a Newcastle team doing well, and in my opinion I thought we matched them and were the stronger team for large periods of the game.”