A tribute to Laurent Robert, scorer of Newcastle’s most inexplicable goals

Whether your team is winning or losing, lifting trophies or barely scraping by, there’s nothing like a guy with a rocket in his boot to cheer you up. 

For Newcastle United, for four seasons between 2001 and 2005, that man was Laurent Robert.

Signed from Paris Saint-Germain for a hefty £9.5million on the back of a season in which he had top-scored for the French club, a record of 32 goals in 181 appearances for the Magpies might be described as underwhelming. And it wouldn’t be entirely unfair to call him a highlights player.

But when your highlights reel is as good as Robert’s and better than plenty of players’ entire careers, frankly, who gives a shit?

He certainly didn’t take long to win over the Newcastle faithful, winning a match-turning penalty and later adding a goal of his own in a 4-1 victory at Middlesbrough in only his third game, but that was nothing compared to his first home goal.

Up against a full-strength Manchester United, with World Cup and European Championship-winning goalkeeper Fabien Barthez between the sticks, lesser players might have crumbled under the pressure of a 30-yard free-kick. Not Robert.

It was the sort of strike that leaves any keeper fumbling in mid-air, forced to determine whether it might be better to pull your arm away to leave some doubt as to whether on another day, you might have kept the ball out. With this, though, there was no one who thought the effort could have been saved.

If that ended up being the only goal Robert ever scored for the club, he’d have still achieved more than a fair few others who arrived with a high fee and a lot of pressure.

But Newcastle won that game 4-3 and would eventually finish the season in fourth place, ensuring a return to the Champions League,