As the final whistle went at the Etihad on Sunday afternoon, the players trooped from the pitch - heavily beaten by Manchester City, it was a day to forget for Newcastle United. Yet, while a Newcastle under the previous owner Mike Ashley would have simply written this one off as ‘ah, well it’s Manchester City,’ this Newcastle United have come too far to do that.
At the turn of the year, Newcastle looked destined to play Championship football next season, and only a miraculous turnaround in form now has them sitting comfortably in midtable. Eddie Howe has come in, raised the standards of the players and set the bar each must meet with every game.
Against City, as good as they are, most fell short. With the talent City have in abundance, they do not need an extra hand in winning games but Newcastle supplied the gifts anyway. All five goals were preventable, and as Howe said after the game, ‘individual mistakes’ cost United dearly.
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Howe’s standards mean that those mistakes will not be allowed to go unnoticed in the build-up to the Arsenal game - with the head coach telling reporters that ‘we’ll watch the goals back.’ It’s something he, along with his staff do after every game - and once they analyse this performance, it might provoke more questions than answers.
Of course, it has to be mentioned once again that it was Manchester City - wounded from the nightmare in Madrid with a roster of talent that most teams can only dream of. Yet at some point, we have to look past the opposition and dive into what went wrong with Newcastle’s own performance.
The wide men not tracking back and therefore leaving the full-backs exposed. The defence leaving men unmarked in the box, and forward men missing golden chances.
It’s football, of course, but the game is built on fine margins, and against teams like Manchester City, teams will be punished. The performance for where Newcastle want to be in the seasons to come was not good enough. The effort was there but the organisation and the basics were not.
Gary Neville during Sky Sports’ coverage of the game remarked that the performance would give Howe a bit more knowledge on who stays and who goes this summer, but equally, there is a feeling it may have provoked some questions over some who many thought may be here for the long-run.
Chris Wood, the £25m January signing from Burnley, missed a golden chance - just a few yards out, unmarked, and failed to get any power on a header which many would have put their last penny going in the back of the net. Sadly for the striker, it’s not worked for him at United, and Sunday was another outing which begs the question of whether he has the quality to really play a part in taking Newcastle forward.
Sean Longstaff started but for a man fighting for a new contract looked off the pace and out of sorts. As our Newcastle editor Aaron Stokes noted on the latest episode of The Everything is Black and White Podcast ; ‘I totally forgot he was playing for about 70 minutes. He's the first name you think of [when it comes to players needing a new deal] - he needs to show what he can do.
"He was given such a huge opportunity with Shelvey and Willock out, and yes it was against Manchester City and he's not going to have the lion's share of possession but it's about getting the basics right. If that was his audition for a new contract, then that says it all."
And some might say this is an overreaction to a defeat against one of the best sides in Europe and one going for the Premier League title - a squad that has been building for the last decade under the stewardship of one of the best managers in the game has ever seen in Pep Guardiola, but does that mean we avoid asking the tough questions of this Newcastle squad.
Newcastle's owners will not want the club beaten so badly again by City but given that they were, it adds to the questions of just how quickly United build this summer. If they are serious about breaking into the top 10 and becoming an established side, then are Wood, Longstaff and Burn the answer?
Some would say no, at least not when it comes to the starting eleven. And to others that might seem a harsh and rather outlandish conclusion - especially when it comes to Burn and Wood but this is Newcastle under an ambitious owner with clear goals and a budget to match those aspirations.
United heading into a summer transfer window with a need for tough decisions to be made - for the recruitment team to show there is no room for sentiment when it comes to success on the pitch. The performance against City showed how far United have to go, but may have also told Howe a lot more about his players than he expected.
