Cardiff City vs Newcastle United. Sky Bet Championship.
Cardiff City StadiumAttendance23,153.
Saturday 29 April 2017 08:01, UK
Newcastle kept the Sky Bet Championship title race alive with a 2-0 victory at Cardiff on Friday night.
Needing at least a draw to give themselves the chance of catching leaders Brighton, superb second-half goals from Christian Atsu and Isaac Hayden settled an otherwise scrappy encounter at the Cardiff City Stadium.
The result lifts Newcastle - who secured promotion with a 4-1 win against Preston on Monday night - to within a point of the Seagulls, who can win the league if they beat Bristol City in the late game on Saturday evening, live on Sky Sports 1.
Cardiff had the ball in the back of the net twice in the first half, but there was no controversy about either decision as first Sean Morrison and then Junior Hoilett had efforts ruled out for a foul and offside respectively.
Finally the game came to life after 55 minutes thanks to the first real moment of quality from Atsu, who was tripped by Morrison on the edge of the area before stepping up to clip a perfect free-kick over the wall and into the top corner.
And Newcastle doubled their advantage 10 minutes later thanks to another fine effort from outside the area, this time by Hayden as he picked up the ball 25 yards from goal before thundering an unstoppable drive into Allan McGregor's bottom corner.
Cardiff were not to going to go down without a fight, however, and had a few glorious opportunities to pull a goal back. But Bruno Manga, Kenneth Zohore and Craig Noone all failed to even test Rob Elliot in between the Newcastle sticks, as they stay 13th in the table.
Cardiff boss Neil Warnock:
"I'm disappointed. I thought we had the best chances tonight. There wasn't much wrong with [Morrison's disallowed] goal, and people might disagree but I didn't see much for the free-kick for their [first] goal. I thought the referee was terrible tonight.
"When the bookies come out we'll probable be [tipped for] mid-table next year. But anything is possible in the Championship if you make the right signings. I think it's an even league next year, I'm looking forward to it."
Newcastle boss Rafa Benitez:
"Obviously I'm really pleased because of the promotion and really pleased because we played a difficult team and did well. In the second half we had control and passed the ball much better and with more pace, which we needed [to do].
"Atsu scored the other day and got another one today, I was really pleased with the free-kick and with Hayden as well. He's a very hard-working midfielder and having a player who can score these kinds of goals is great for us too.
"We're happy with our performance and the promotion, if we can win the title fine, but if we cannot we're still really pleased with our season."
