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Men's Football Striker issues haunt Newcastle after limp draw with Norwich

NEWCSATLE United were rather fortunate to come away with a point as they struggled to create anything against bottom-of-the-Premier-League Norwich City at St James’ Park.

As takeover talk swirls around Tyneside once again, there was an opportunity to further cement their position in mid-table, but it was another disappointing afternoon, even though their unbeaten run stretched to seven games. 

Teemu Pukki had the chances to win it, but the visitors’ limitations were clear too.

Steve Bruce admitted Joelinton and Miguel Almiron looked tired in attack, just a day after he opted not to sign a striker despite injuries to Yoshinori Muto, Dwight Gayle and Andy Carroll.

“With the problems that we’ve had — and I don’t want to highlight it — you can see with Joe in particular and with Almiron over the last two or three weeks, it would be lovely to be in a position where I could rotate them a little bit,” he said.

“They’ve played every minute, practically, of every game and I haven’t got the luxury now of changing anything at that end of the pitch to give us a little bit of a spark.

“The good thing is in [recent] games we haven’t played well enough, we’ll accept that, but we haven’t been beaten either, which is always important and it was important today that we didn’t get beaten.”

Norwich settled quickly, dominating possession and playing the ball forward at every opportunity. Martin Dubravka was forced into a save by Sam Byram, who powered Ondrej Duda’s corner goalwards from 10 yards.

But for a tame Allan Saint-Maximin effort, Newcastle made very little impact early on. Their passiveness was summed up when Matt Ritchie screamed at Joelinton for not making a run, but the former Scotland international soon got things going with a brilliant cross from the left. It only evaded the record signing by inches.

Joelinton thought he had given Newcastle the lead when he met DeAndre Yedlin’s deep cross with a header. Former Magpies stopper Tim Krul denied him with an acrobatic save, and Almiron somehow nodded the rebound wide.

On the half-hour mark, Pukki raced through for Norwich, but Federico Fernandez denied him with an excellent sliding challenge. Towards half time, Jamaal Lascelles stopped Todd Cantwell, who was breaking with menace, in his tracks.

After the break, the Canaries continued to grow in confidence, and they should have taken the lead as the hour approached. Another corner caused problems, with Kenny McLean heading wide from point-blank range.

Pukki squandered another chance after finding space in the area, as the Magpies, who introduced new signing Valentino Lazaro and Sean Longstaff, continued to ride their luck. The latter had been the subject of appeals after bringing Cantwell down in the area, but referee Martin Atkinson, and VAR, were unmoved.

Newcastle tried to build a head of steam, but again Norwich should have gone ahead. Pukki latched onto Lascelles’ poor clearance, before forcing Dubravka into another save. Ciaran Clark almost put into his own net, but the ball was cleared in time before Duda smashed a shot into the side-netting.

Danny Rose was introduced for his bow, replacing Saint-Maximin, but Newcastle didn’t look like a team capable of scoring. Norwich continued to push and looked the better for it, but the game petered out into a goalless draw. 

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