The fly-on-the-wall documentary We are Newcastle United showing on Prime Video every Friday night may be safe and sanitised but the real thing is anything but.
Unvarnished, unspun and viewed with the naked eye, Newcastle are brilliant and brutal, ruthless and relentless. In cameos, Aston Villa reminded everyone they remain a decent team but Unai Emery’s players could not match the edge and desire of the hosts, who have found a new cult hero in Italy’s Sandro Tonali.
Indeed as an increasingly forlorn Villa manager surveyed the defensive carnage unfolding in front of him you wondered if he regretted rejecting the Newcastle job subsequently accepted by Eddie Howe in November 2021.
Since then an amalgam of Howe’s coaching and Saudi Arabian money has created a squad that looks eminently capable of gracing this season’s Champions League. Not to mention fuelling Tyneside optimism.
Sure enough, after only seven minutes St James’ Park reverberated to triumphalist choruses of “We’re going to win the league”. Sixty seconds earlier Tonali finished off a move he had started courtesy of a fine central midfield interception and Newcastle were ahead.
After stretching to connect with a fine left wing cross dispatched by the outstanding Anthony Gordon, Howe’s £50m summer signing from Milan volleyed the ball inexorably beyond Emiliano Martínez.
At that point Newcastle’s high-energy press appeared powered by high voltage electricity, leaving Emery appealing for calm from his panicked charges.
Villa needed to regroup but, happily for the Spaniard, France’s Moussa Diaby was on hand to help. By way of celebrating his summer move from Bayer Leverkusen, Diaby duly volleyed an invitingly bouncing ball beyond Nick Pope after being left unattended 12 yards out. Once again, that goal came from a cross, in this instance flicked on by Ollie Watkins.
Newcastle swiftly regained their lead. Once more Tonali assumed a central role, collecting Kieran Trippier’s short free-kick and lifting it into the area for Sven Botman to hook square for Alexander Isak to prod past Argentina’s goalkeeper.
With Tonali, Bruno Guimarães and Joelinton – who played a lovely one-two with Gordon in the preamble to Tonali’s opener – showing every indication of proving a formidable midfield trio Howe’s team often seemed irresistible.
“Sandro was magnificent,” said Newcastle’s manager, whose side travel to Manchester City for an intriguing engagement on Saturday. “It was a tight, tough game decided by our ruthlessness and we can improve. But we want our supporters to dream.”
Villa, too, harbour ambitions of impressing in elite circles and when Diaby and Watkins joined forces they sometimes succeeded in emphasising that Botman and his defensive colleagues are mortal after all.
Emery could have done without losing his own central defensive linchpin when Tyrone Mings was carried off with a serious knee injury, potentially a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, in the 30th minute after a routine challenge with Isak.
“The result is bad but losing Tyrone was worse,” said Emery. “It doesn’t look good. It’s very sad for him and for us.”
On came another Villa debutant in Pau Torres. The Spain defender, previously part of Emery’s Villarreal backline, displayed some classy touches but could have wished for a less stressful introduction.
Martínez certainly looked fazed as he hared way out of his area only to be beaten to the ball by Miguel Almirón before hauling the Paraguayan back. Along with the majority of the crowd, Howe demanded a red card but the referee merely issued a yellow one. It seemed that he had, correctly, determined that, with a trio of Villa shirts blocking Almirón’s already lengthy route to goal, it was far from a clear-cut scoring opportunity.
No matter; as Tonali, all sharp, elegant, intelligent, movement, continued enthralling his new public, Isak grew in attacking stature.
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The Sweden forward scored again after Ezri Konsa lost concentration and made an awful hash of subduing an admittedly sublime Gordon pass. All that remained was for Isak to intervene, pinch possession and dink the ball over the advancing Martínez.
Even the subsequently joint withdrawal of Isak and Gordon did Villa little good. Their replacements, Callum Wilson and Harvey Barnes, promptly combined, with the latter squaring for Wilson to score Newcastle’s fourth.
Not to be outdone, Barnes then accelerated through Villa’s slapdash and shattered defence to become the evening’s third scoring debutant.
“Newcastle’s power was very big,” said Emery. “They were good.”
