{"id":364637,"date":"2025-12-22T14:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T14:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/364637\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T14:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T14:14:08","slug":"newcastle-united-2-2-chelsea-player-ratings-st-reece-james-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/364637\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle United 2-2 Chelsea, Player Ratings: St Reece James\u2019 Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Reecey started the comeback in the opening minutes of the second half, scoring with a most wonderful free kick to underline what was yet another excellent performance from the captain in both midfield and at right back (he switched to the latter position after Enzo replaced Malo Gusto). It\u2019s the 10th Premier League goal of his career, and the second this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">James is putting together a very good season \u2014 probably his best since 2021-22 \u2014 and the obvious key enabler for that has been his health. He\u2019s been able to stay fit, in part due to judicious rotation and workload management by the coaching and fitness staff, and we\u2019re reaping the benefits when he\u2019s on the pitch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hopefully that approach continues to enable us, and enable him, to keep leading us on and off the pitch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">There was a strange stat from Sky making the rounds last week, about how our No.9\u2019s have only scored one (1) goal this season, or some such \u2026 when JP alone had four in the league coming in. Most of those had come in games where Liam Delap had started as our nominal center forward, so the engagement farmers took that opportunity and ran with it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">But not even they could deny this classic bit of center forward play from our \u2026 you know, center forward! Route one, taking advantage of some passive defending, then a clinical finish. Didier Drogba would be proud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">He may have given up two goals, but this was a tremendous performance from Bob, making a couple incredible saves (including the initial save on Newcastle\u2019s opening goal) and also collecting an assist for JP\u2019s equalizer. It was <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NizaarKinsella\/status\/2002387928543039849\" rel=\"nofollow\">apparently<\/a> the first official goalkeeper assist in the Premier League for Chelsea since 2010.<\/p>\n<p>vs. NEWCASTLE UNITED (PL, A, D 2-2)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">EXCEPTIONAL (8.5-9.5): \u2014<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">EXCELLENT (7.5-8.4): James (8.1)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">GOOD (6.5-7.4): Jo\u00e3o Pedro (7.2), S\u00e1nchez (7.1), Caicedo (6.9)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">AVERAGE (5.5-6.4): Cucurella (6.3), Enzo (6.3, sub), Neto (6.0), Chalobah (5.9), Palmer (5.8), Santos (5.7, sub)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">SUBPAR (4.5-5.4): Garnacho (5.4), Fofana (5.2), Gusto (5.0)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reecey started the comeback in the opening minutes of the second half, scoring with a most wonderful free&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,151156,85],"class_list":["post-364637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chelsea-fc-premier-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}