The modern Manchester City have a tradition of dramatic 3-2 comeback victories in title-winning campaigns. Oscar Bobb’s decider did not have the finality of Sergio Aguero and Ilkay Gundogan’s last-day goals but it may help City win more than just a thriller at St James’ Park. Yet the immediate significance may have been for Newcastle United.
Eleven points off fourth, with a double-digit distance to fifth, Newcastle’s return to the Champions League this year will not be a one-off but nor will it contain a sequel next season. A club with grand ambitions but a realistic trajectory aimed for a top-six finish this season. Now they are 10th and, by the time this round of fixtures ends next week, they could be eight points adrift of sixth. The trophy drought on Tyneside famously dates back to the 1960s: now there is an added onus to end it, with the FA Cup potentially offering the Magpies’ best chance of European football next year.
The simplistic explanation for their slide may be that Newcastle are suffering from their version of second-season syndrome, a reaction to the overachievement of the previous campaign. Yet the manner of City’s triumph felt cruelly familiar, with the cocktail of late goals involving substitutes that Newcastle had seen before: against AC Milan, Chelsea and Liverpool. And, while there is nothing novel in citing Newcastle’s debilitating injury problems, it illustrates their pertinence in a sequence of eight defeats in 10 games.
“We’ve seen it so many times ourselves this season, you bring on an attacking sub and suddenly your team dynamic looks totally different,” manager Eddie Howe reflected. “We’ve got some incredible athletes missing at the moment that would have given us another gear or couple of gears.”
The reference to physicality was no coincidence: by preference, Newcastle play at eviscerating speed. There was a sense that Howe’s gameplan this season, especially with the more crowded fixture list, was to use some of his players as finishers: not so much in the sense that Alan Shearer was one, but in the way the former England rugby coach Eddie Jones deployed the term, as specialist substitutes. In particular, the all-action duo of Anthony Gordon and Miguel Almiron looked designed to be replaced after 70 minutes: without Harvey Barnes and Jacob Murphy, who have not played for three-and-a-half and two months respectively, that option is gone. Newcastle lose attacking threat and then concede.
The cost of Sandro Tonali’s ban can be measured in many ways: one is simply that, were the Italian available, then Sean Longstaff and Lewis Miley could have been the cavalry more often, sent on to see out games, rather than always starting and finishing them. Newcastle have often had defenders on the bench, but not midfielders and forwards. “We’re missing a lot of players from the same position,” Howe rued.
Newcastle were left frustrated by Man City at St James’ Park— (AFP via Getty Images)
In theory, he has strength in depth. In practice, he doesn’t. Newcastle are an excellent starting 11 – as City could testify on Saturday – but that seems to be all they have. Their propensity to fade when others send on the substitutes is apparent in the numbers. Newcastle have not scored a result-altering goal, one that put them ahead or drew them level, after the 64th minute all season; they have conceded them in 10 matches in all competitions from the 65th minute onwards.
In the Premier League, they have a goal difference of plus 13 in the first 70 minutes of matches (31-18), but minus four thereafter (10-14). They have spent weeks waiting for respite: the transfer market may not offer it, with FFP limiting Newcastle’s dealings and City’s proposed loan fee for Kalvin Phillips too high for their liking; a more favourable fixture list in February and March may provide it but the gap to sixth, let alone fourth, may start to look unbridgeable. Players should start to return, but the brilliant Bruno Guimaraes is a booking away from a two-game ban. “The last thing we need,” said Howe.
Results are wrong, although much else is right. Alexander Isak – “the all-round striker, in my opinion; he can go on to achieve incredible things,” said Howe – was outstanding, Gordon has now scored against five of the supposedly big six at St James’ Park and Martin Dubravka’s string of saves suggest Howe does not need to sign a goalkeeper in Nick Pope’s absence.
There are glimpses of what Newcastle were for much of the last 18 months and what they can be. “I have no doubt about the qualities we possess,” Howe said. “This is a difficult period for us, but we’re still a very, very good team.”
They are arguably a better team than Manchester United and Chelsea – certainly a more coherent one, built with a greater clarity of thought – but find themselves in an inferior position. They did not expect to be 10th now and could be in the bottom half before they play again. Having risen swiftly, they have fallen at surprising speed and in ways that can feel luckless. Now the task is to clamber back up again, to salvage European qualification from a season that is going awry.
