Newcastle's Moussa Sissoko shatters Chelsea with last-gasp winner

This was one of the best games of the season, a marvellously entertaining and eventful contest between two well-matched sides. Whether that flatters Newcastle or Chelsea most is a moot point, given their respective positions in the table, though it would appear that the home side's latest top-up of French talent has restored the feelgood factor on Tyneside. That was true even before Moussa Sissoko rifled home a last-minute winner. That sort of exciting finale always send a crowd home happy, though even before that Newcastle had shown guts to climb back into the game at a point in the second half when Chelsea looked capable of running away with it. While it is not quite true, these days, to say not many teams come back against Chelsea, few will manage it when the Blues are playing this well.
Frank Lampard wasted the first chance of the game with a volley over the bar from a promising move involving Juan Mata and Ashley Cole, though after that it was all Newcastle for the rest of the first half, so much so that Alan Pardew must half been preparing an interval pep talk on the importance of turning pressure into goals until Jonás Gutiérrez relieved the situation with a lovely header four minutes before the break.
It was not that Newcastle were not creating opportunities, it was the fact they were missing gilt-edged invitations to score that was visibly driving Pardew wild. Papiss Cissé was foiled by a decent save from Petr Cech midway through the first half, though with only the goalkeeper to beat from a good position it was hardly the clinical finish we have come to expect from the Senegal striker. Sissoko should have done better than shoot too high after half an hour, then Cissé squandered the best chance of the lot, again allowing Cech to save when the ball dropped perfectly for him near the penalty spot.

If the home side were going to miss openings like that they seemed likely to be in for a frustrating afternoon, though the goal they eventually scored was not only high quality it was a superb finish from a player who is not a prolific goalscorer. Much of the credit should go to Davide Santon for an excellent right-foot cross from the left wing, one that Gutiérrez attacked with much more conviction than Gary Cahill or John Terry, beating the latter to the ball to send a glancing header into Cech's bottom left corner.
Not even Chelsea fans could deny that a goal had been coming, and the visitors' own chances of scoring were simultaneously being reduced by the forced departure of Demba Ba with a bloodied and broken nose. Naturally the Chelsea striker received scant sympathy from his former public. Booing him from the start and reacting ecstatically when Yohan Cabaye bundled his former teammate off the ball early in the game, the Newcastle crowd thought it hilarious when Ba received a kick in the face from Fabricio Coloccini as he attempted to head past Tim Krul. The damage was entirely accidental, Coloccini went for the loose ball with his foot, Ba with his head after Krul had kept out the initial shot, but after five minutes of treatment on the sidelines followed by an almost comically unconvincing attempt to play on under a heavy plaster, the striker gave way to Fernando Torres just after the opening goal.
Chelsea too can score spectacular goals from midfield, however, and the reliably prolific Lampard came up with one of his very best to level the scores early in the second half. Not much looked on as Ashley Cole took a throw in on the left, indeed the full-back hesitated when the ball was returned to him as if he could not see a pass worth making, but once he chipped a pass inside to Lampard a sublime turn past James Perch transformed a static situation and no sooner had space opened up than Krul was being beaten by a dipping, early shot from just outside the penalty area.
Seven minutes later, after Lampard had headed straight into Krul's arms from Mata's teasing cross, Chelsea were in front. Again the finish was of the highest quality, Mata taking a short pass from Torres and striking a shot from the angle of the area so sweetly that he was wheeling away in celebration before the ball had crossed the line.
Now it was Newcastle's turn to show character and they duly hit back with an equaliser. Yoan Gouffran showed a turn of speed to outstrip the Chelsea cover, and though his shot never seemed likely to beat Cech, Sissoko was on hand to tuck away the rebound with a calmness that ought to have made Cissé blush.
Not for the first time at St James' Park, inflamed passions spilled over to the technical areas, where a heated argument broke out between the two sets of coaching assistants shortly after the fourth goal. Directly after the third goal, Cissé and Cole had both been booked for unnecessarily squaring up to each other, but peace had broken out by the time Santon set up his second goal of the afternoon, this time with a simple square pass inside the area that Sissoko emphatically thumped home.