Moussa Sissoko shines as Newcastle beat Chelsea

New signing Moussa Sissoko had the home debut of his dreams on Saturday as he dragged Newcastle from defeat and led them to a memorable victory.

From the start Newcastle looked up for it, however Chelsea had the first chance, with Frank Lampard ‘shinning’ the ball over from 10 yards. Papiss Cisse then hit a tame effort at Petr Cech, before having an effort saved again from 10 yards.

Chelsea then attacked through Demba Ba, who ran on to a great pass from Frank Lampard, he then shot at Krul and was kicked in the face on the rebound. It has divided opinion as to whether it was a penalty or not, for me it was an indirect free kick to Chelsea because it was a high foot, but it was not intentionally malicious.

Ba tried to come back on but it was plain to see that he was in distress, he went off directly after a Jonas Gutierrez goal, a rare header from a very good Davide Santon cross.

However after half time Chelsea turned on the style as world class strikes from Frank Lampard and Juan Mata fired them into a 2-1 lead. I fully expected  Newcastle to lose by even more goals but an excellent counter attack put Yoan Gouffran through on goal, Cech saved, but the ball fell for Sissoko who finished the bouncing ball well from 12 yards out and he sent the Newcastle fans into raptures. Five minutes later Sissoko burned Ashley Cole for pace and struck a fierce strike that stung the palms of Petr Cech, the geordies could smell blood.

It was in the 85th minute when David Santon cut the ball back to Sissoko who drove home from the edge of the area to lift the roof off St James’ Park . Chelsea came close in injury time but were denied, courtesy of Steven Taylor’s nether regions.

A mini lap of honour followed the final whistle and a new air of confidence swept over St James’. With the imminent return of Cheick Tiote after the Ivory Coast’s loss to Nigeria and Hatem Ben Arfa coming back from injury, Newcastle will have a team that no one will want to face and we can hopefully lead us to have a good second half to the season.