Chris Hughton praises rampant wingers

Feb 18 2010 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

CHRIS Hughton hailed his wing wonders for helping Newcastle United to put their nervous week behind them.

After two disappointing away games Newcastle returned to the top of the Championship with an impressive 4-1 victory over Coventry City.

Last night’s home victory featured an impressive display from new signing Wayne Routledge – who equalised Clinton Morrison’s goal with a terrific volley to cap a fine display.

That settled the nerves on a freezing night at St James’ Park and was followed by another important Andrew Carroll goal before Peter Lovenkrands scored from the spot after more impressive Routledge trickery. Ryan Taylor made it four in stoppage time.

It was a satisfying night for Hughton, who was delighted with the way Routledge and Jonas Gutierrez made hay against the Sky Blues.

“I think what we have is him and Jonas in wide areas who are able to express themselves,” he said.

“It’s certainly a good period at St James’ Park at the moment. The team that we’ve played here has been a little bit more offensive with Danny and Kevin in the middle of the park and you hope you can capitalise on that.

“It was a smashing goal. What Wayne has is old-fashioned wing play and you look to him to provide crosses into the box.

“They like old fashioned wingers at St James’ Park and that’s what he is. We’ve got him at a good age. He has been in and out of big clubs but we hope we’ve got him at a good time and we can develop his game further.

“I think it’s understandable people were worried. We have set high standards and we’d fallen below them, particularly at Derby,” he said. “You’re going to have your highs and lows and the last two away games we haven’t been at our best. But thankfully we were back to those high standards. We’re continuing to churn out results – we’re going to need to do that.

“We’ll certainly need to take some of our home form into our away form if we want to achieve what we want to achieve this season.” The emphatic scoreline perhaps added a gloss to the evening but it was a good night for Hughton and his players, who will be brimming with confidence for the visit of Preston on Saturday.

“I think in the end it was comfortable,” Hughton said.

“The first half shows what we expect - you had a Coventry side in good form who worked hard.

“We got in good positons but never really capitalised and they defended well.

“When they got the goal it spurred us on to what we were able to achieve.”