The snowballing of outrage over Nigel de Jong’s tackle on Hatem Ben Arfa has been as inevitable as the neeed to fill football pages in a week without high profile games. The story has followed a journalistic arc that’s worth recapping as we attempt to make sense of the acres of comment – and then roll our eyes at the inevitability of it all.
In the beginning: the tackle took place on Sunday without a free-kick being awarded by the referee, who saw the incident. Play wasn’t stopped and the Newcastle players did not react with outrage. Television commentators at the time, and later on Match Of The Day 2 offered sympathy to Ben Arfa, but judged the tackle legitimate.
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A disappointing performance was redeemed by a brilliant winning goal from substitute Adam Johnson. A result that takes City up to second place making the league table a better spectacle than much of this game.
Roberto Mancini reverted to the same midfield and attack that had defeated Chelsea, while at the back Boateng made his first Premier League start and Lescott came in for the injured Zabaleta at left-back. Two perfectly understandable changes.
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Hart – Made one spectacular fingertip save from Coloccini and showed good judgement in dealing with crosses. No chance with the goal. 7
Boateng – Left completely exposed in the first half thanks to the wandering David Silva. Jerome inevitably struggled to cope as Newcastle doubled up on him. Never really got into the pace of the game and we’ll be looking for more once he’s improved his match fitness. Did well in the final quarter defending crosses against Carroll. 6
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A second side in black and white stripes arrives at Eastlands this week. Only this time it contains Joey Barton rather than Del Piero.
Roberto Mancini will be looking for victory following last weekend’s morale boosting win over Chelsea. A repeat of the defeat to Sunderland which followed the triumph over Liverpool needs to be avoided.
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