Curtis Takes The Blame

Curtis Davies has had a rather strange week, but he is prepared to take the blame for our loss to Fulham.

After being called into the England squad, giving away the freekick that led to Fulham’s winner and limping off with injury, Davies can possibly be forgiven for not knowing whether he is coming or going, but with the same honesty we saw after Leicester he knows ‘that’s football for you.’

Speaking on the official site today, he has willingly taken the blame for the loss of points and he’s determined to make up for it if he recovers fitness for Newcastle.

‘I thought I could have done better in the game to help our cause, but it just shows that I have got more to do and I am not going to stop trying.

‘I wanted to put in a good performance but for the first goal I saw Simon Davies late and tried to react but he got there first.

‘Then for the second I gave away a free-kick and nine times out of ten they don’t go in, but I hold my hands up. I am not going to hide.

‘He skipped past someone and I thought: ‘you are not going to get past me!’

‘I thought that if I didn’t win the ball that it was better for me to get him, then we could reshape from there.

‘I took the decision to win the ball or the man and it backfired on me because they put it in the net.

‘I took that decision because I thought we would be safe with the free-kick, because I know what ‘Joe’ has got, he can skip past people and put the ball in the back of the net, but they did that anyway.

‘We are good friends. I have got his shirt. He was one of my best mates at Albion.

‘It was just that I thought the ball was there to be won but he was quick enough to move it away from me.’

Speaking about the performance overall, Davies commented:

‘We didn’t click. We went ahead through a fortunate deflection, but you take those and we were then looking to go on and get another one.

‘But it didn’t happen for us. The only other clear-cut chance that we had was Martin Laursen from a corner, and they went down the other end and scored straight away.

‘We can’t knock Martin because he is not in the side to be scoring goals, but as a team we have to do more in our forward play and finish teams off.’

Despite limping off injured Davies doesn’t believe his knee will be much of a problem and he’s hopeful that with the international break he can back in time for Newcastle.

‘I don’t know what happened. I was running back from a corner and as I stopped I just felt my knee – every time when I tried to straighten it out it was hurting.

‘I thought I might be able to run it off, but I looked at the bench and thought they might be better getting someone else on for the last three minutes.

‘I didn’t want to be at fault for another goal. It is sore at the moment.

‘It is the same as Gabby’s in that it does not look too serious. I will just have to see what the physios have to say.

‘It is a big blow for Gabby but I don’t think it is anything too serious, just a strain. I think he could have maybe played on but wouldn’t have contributed much.

‘If he had played on he might have hurt it more. We are hoping that he will be alright for the weekend, but you never know.

‘He has to have some treatment and we will see what the physios say from there.’