Newcastle United coach explains ‘copied’ Kieran Trippier corner routine against Sunderland

There was a feeling of deja vu at St James’ Park on Monday night when Joe White handed Newcastle United under-21s the lead against Sunderland from a cleverly worked short corner routine.

Indeed, it was almost identical to Callum Wilson’s second goal versus Aston Villa on Saturday when Kieran Trippier passed to Miguel Almiron, who flicked it back to the England right-back before his dinked cross was headed home by Wilson.

White and Dylan Stephenson did the exact same in the under-21s Tyne-Wear derby, the only difference being White opted to shoot rather than cross, which he powered past Black Cats goalkeeper Alex Bass.

Eddie Howe credited his backroom team of Jason Tindall, Simon Weatherstone and Graeme Jones for the Villa goal. Dickman, meanwhile, praised goalkeeping coach Tony Caig, and admitted both routines paying off just two days apart was “a bit of a coincidence”.

"I’ll be honest with you, Tony Caig, our goalkeeping coach, looks after all our set plays so all the credit goes to Tony and Hayden (Rockall) our analyst,” Dickman told NewcastleWorld. “They do all the work behind the scenes.

“From my point of view, I fully trust what they’re doing. They’re the guys that are doing it and if they’ve had a conversation with senior staff then brilliant. If they haven’t then they felt it was right for the game.

“Listening to them discuss it, I think maybe we saw something in their set-up that could allow us to do that. It’s probably a bit of a coincidence that it’s happened at the same time as the first team but brilliant from both teams."

Unfortunately, as much as it deserved to be the winning goal, it wasn’t as Bass scored a controversial last-gasp equaliser with his arm to deny the young Magpies the local bragging rights.