Manzambi irks Newcastle as Villa claims victory
Former Newcastle United transfer target Johan Manzambi was the match-winner as Aston Villa earned a 1-0 victory over Matthias Jaissle's side at a disgruntled St. James' Park.
Manzambi had looked set to join Newcastle from Freiburg in July, only for that deal to be successfully hijacked by Villa, and he continued his superb start to Premier League life at the Magpies' expense.
His 36th-minute header gave Unai Emery's side a lead it would not relinquish, with Newcastle being booed off after a second straight Premier League defeat.
It was Villa that started on the front foot as Nicolas Jackson shot straight at Lukas Hornicek with the outside of his boot, while Sven Botman was arguably fortunate to avoid a red card after clattering the former Chelsea and Bayern Munich forward.
Jackson continued to be heavily involved as his curler flicked off Botman and faded wide, but it was Manzambi who opened the scoring.
He was left totally unmarked when Joao Gomes floated a cross in from the right flank, and though Hornicek got a hand to his header, there was simply too much power for the Czech to keep it out.
Newcastle had a huge reprieve when Emiliano Buendia's shot smacked off the post and hit Hornicek on the back, with no claret shirts ready to pounce on what would have been a tap-in, and the half-time whistle brought boos from the disgruntled home fans.
Having scored a wonder-goal in Newcastle's 4-1 defeat at Coventry City five days earlier, Botman almost repeated the trick with a well-struck effort that Zion Suzuki had to push wide, while Yoane Wissa headed over as the hosts grew increasingly desperate.
Hornicek tipped a drive from Villa substitute Ross Barkley around his right-hand post, as Villa combined its resolute defensive work with incisive counter-attacking.
Ibrahim Mbaye had two opportunities to get a clinching goal off the bench, one of which saw him power over at the near post, while the second saw his reverse shot fade wide after a mazy dribble.
But with Wissa planting his final attempt wide of the right post and Victor Lindelof throwing himself in front of the ball amid a late scramble in the Villa area, Newcastle was unable to find an equaliser.
Asked about Manzambi's impact in his post-match interview, Jackson said: "He's an amazing player. He's still growing.
"Hopefully he can be better and better every game, score goals and assist me sometimes as well! Hopefully we work together and achieve many things together.
"He will go a long way and hopefully he gets no injuries. For sure, if he is okay and he is training hard, he will go a long way and get many more goals and assists."
Newcastle is now without a home clean sheet in 16 consecutive games in all competitions, which is the longest run in its history.
Head coach Matthias Jaissle knows his team needs to be better in the final third, even if he was pleased with aspects of its performance.
"It was a game we were dominating, where we saw a team giving a response," Jaissle said. "We created many situations where you felt like we were going to win that game, until we conceded the goal.
"We need to be honest – we were shaking a bit until half-time, but again, we showed a good response. In the second 45 minutes, it was really aggressive from our lads.
"We won the duels, unfortunately we were not smart enough in the final decision-making in the opposition box, so that is something we need to work on. We need to threaten the opposition much more – the lucky punch was missing.
"We need to learn to find the reset straight away and consistently believe in the things we were doing before. I cannot say anything against the attitude, but the goal was missing."
Johan Kula Manzambi
Aston Villa FC
