We’re all familiar with the truism that the actual days of the week become somehow irrelevant between Christmas and New Year, with the only thing to anchor us to reality being FA Cup third round day on the first Saturday in January. Very true, but this year it is on the second weekend in January, with the 20th round of Premier League fixtures pencilled in for the weekend of Saturday 4th and the League Cup semi finals scheduled for the midweek after that. For Newcastle, this means a pair of trips to North London, for Spurs in the league and then Arsenal in the first leg of the cup. Fixtures don’t let up after that, with three home games off the belt: Bromley (FA Cup, Sunday 12th), Wolves (Wednesday 15th) and Bournemouth (Saturday 18th lunchtime). Bearing in mind that I’ve not written about the club since the November international break, which seems an age ago, I’d best rapidly scribble a few thoughts as the league campaign reaches the halfway point.
2024 was the first year since 1972 when I didn’t set foot inside St James Park. My last visit was the 3-0 thumping of Fulham in December 2023, and my next one will be the Bromley cup game, which I’m getting a mite giddy at the prospect of already. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though; there are 9 games to reflect on since I last blogged my opinions. After a cracking pair of results at home against Chelsea in the cup and Arsenal in the league, none of us were keen on the unnecessary November international break, but still held a strong belief we’d put a labouring West Ham side to the sword when hostilities resumed on Monday 25th November. I was really ill that day, having picked up either a bug or some version of food poisoning, meaning I’d slept, shivered and sweated in rapid rotation for the 20 hours until kick off. I managed to drag myself from my sick bed to lie prone on the sofa for this one and frankly wish I hadn’t bothered. Perhaps all of our memories erase the good parts of all defeats, but I recall we started this one promisingly and on the front foot. However, atrocious finishing either side of their opening goal let us down badly. The second half saw an alarming dip in the quality of our play. While I was lucky enough to miss the second, killer goal, while throwing up in the bog, I saw the uncomfortable reality of much of Newcastle United’s support. There doesn’t seem to be much point in agitating for a massive new ground, or an extended current one, if the place is only half full after 75 minutes and most of those remaining are sat in sulky silence, ready to boo the team off at full time. Yes, it was a poor result and a disappointing performance, after the break, but there’s no need to flounce off in a strop. If you can’t handle getting beat, don’t follow football.
When Newcastle went to Palace, I went to Forfar Athletic v Stirling Albion in the Scotch FA Cup and had a brilliant day. Sadly, after a breathtaking 120 minutes had ended in a 3-3 draw, I had to leave before the penalties (Forfar won 4-2) in order to make my connections. Only when I was sat on the bus back to Dundee did I check on the Newcastle score as, with the amount of chaotic fun to be enjoyed at Station Park, I’d naively assumed we’d held on for a 1-0 win, courtesy of our former transfer target, the notoriously homophobic Marc Guehi. As you all know, this wasn’t the case and I have to say, watching the highlights, a draw seemed a fair result. Obviously, social media went into meltdown over the performance and the result, but nobody seemed keen on pointing the finger at who was responsible for their late equaliser; Nick Pope had a positional shocker for that goal and, sad to say, hasn’t looked all that brilliant the whole season through. With Isak limping off, I would imagine were rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of a trip to Tyneside and three easy points in midweek.
Before that game kicked off, I had two funerals to attend; the second of which on the Wednesday itself was my dear friend Gary’s dad, Colin. He’d been a lifelong Newcastle fan, and this game produced the kind of rip-roaring excitement and raise the roof atmosphere that was a fitting tribute to a great bloke. I loved how Newcastle got at them right from the off (what a goal by Isak eh?) and never allowed their heads to drop when Liverpool came back into it. In the end, I think shit refereeing did cost us as we definitely should have had a penalty for a foul on Isak, but I find it hard to get angry about the final whistle blowing when we were on the attack, as the laws of the game state the final whistle must be blown when the ball is in play. This was hardly Brazil v Sweden in 1978, was it?
By the time of the Brentford away game on the Saturday, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and the only game I could find was Benton 0 Hexham 6 at the NFA’s unfinished symphony to the local game at St Peter’s Fields. You’ve got to feel sorry for clubs who put on home games in terrible conditions and then get trounced, but at least it meant I got home, frozen and soaked, for the second half of the Brentford game. I wish I hadn’t bothered, as what unfolded, after a pretty even and exciting first period, was the kind of limp catastrophe akin to the abject surrender there under Bruce in the League Cup quarter finals back in 2020. Same as on that night, as soon as we went behind, it was game over. I honestly don’t recall us having an effort on goal worthy of the name in the whole second period. For the first time in years, we had a load of empty shirts picking up their wages for nothing. Bruno was the worst offender, but many others offered nothing tangible. The continued presence of Callum Wilson at this club is an outrage, with Mickail Antonio being more mobile and offering more of a threat while in an induced coma. The whole team were sluggish, utterly unable to force the pace and impotent in attack. Sadly, the buck has to stop with Howe. If the Saudi owners are serious about Newcastle United as a project, then the next home games against Leicester and Brentford in the cup, as well as the trip to Ipswich, were all must win games. In any normal circumstances, failure in that trio of fixtures would see the axe fall. However, I remain to be convinced that the PFI are that bothered about Newcastle United because of the irritating profit and sustainability restrictions. It’s all about the line of least resistance, I guess.
In the end, such speculation is worthless as well as imponderable, as Newcastle turned in 5 astonishing victories in a row, scoring 16 and conceding 1. In the league, the four wins off the belt were achieved with consecutive clean sheets. If success starts from the back, then the presence of a rejuvenated Martin Dubravka between the sticks has to be the bedrock of this upswing in form. The hesitant, fumbling mistake in waiting we saw last season has been transformed. Additionally, the Tonali and Guimaraes partnership has bloomed beautifully, while Isak has returned to the full-on assassin mode we saw when he first arrived. However, the real hero has been Jacob Murphy; a popular player, but one often derided for supposedly lack star quality, he has torn up the form book of late. I arrived back from another Percy Main loss about half an hour into the Leicester game, where all the commentators could talk about was how fabulous Newcastle had played, but were failing to turn this dominance into goals. Just then, Murphy put us ahead with an effortlessly beautiful strike from a Gordon assist. From that moment on, we held the game by the scruff of the neck, with Lewis Hall and Anthony Gordon displaying telepathic understanding down the left. In all honesty, a 4-0 win flattered them, and we moved on to the Brentford cup game in energy saving mode.
Brentford are great at home, but less impressive on their travels. This may have tilted the scales in our favour, but the real difference was Tonali, starting in place of the suspended Sean, who scored two blinding goals. He really is starting to pay us back for standing by him during his suspension last season. Brentford didn’t look interested until 3-0, when we made a raft of changes. Their late goal, which may have been called offside by VAR, spoiled Dubravka’s clean sheet, but it was important to get through to the semi-finals, though I think I would have preferred Spurs in the semis, not Arsenal.
Ipswich seem to be a reinvention of Swindon 1993/1994, playing pretty football, but too often a soft touch when up against quality. I recall a 4-0 win in September 2009 under Chris Hughton, which contrasted with an awful 3-1 loss in the next promotion campaign under El Fraudo. There was no chance of the latter being repeated, but every chance of the former, when Isak rifled us ahead after 24 seconds, though my notification said 4 minutes, allowing for the VAR check. In the end, a second successive 4-0 win in the league was achieved with the minimum of fuss, sending us into Christmas with a spring our step.
After a wonderful visit to Sam Smith’s Park to see Benfield win the local derby 1-0 over Blue Star, I eschewed an afternoon on the pop, for one on the sofa, as Amazon Prime broadcast the Villa game, which I enjoyed almost as much as Hibs restoring the natural order in Embra after trouncing the Bus Drivers at Swinecastle with a goal by NUFC legend Dwight Gayle. Let’s be honest, Aston Villa are a canny team and our 5-1 win at home last season was a bit of an outlier for both sides, so I didn’t dare dream we could make a repeat performance. We did though, tearing into them from the off, seeing Gordon smashing us into an early lead with a brilliant finish and then benefitting from Jhon Duran’s idiotic assault on Schar that was rightly punished with a red card. From that point on, we cruised to a win. Three disallowed efforts and an absolute pearler from Joelinton saw us move up to fifth, which we’d scarcely have dreamed possible only three weeks earlier.
But the easiest win was still to come. A facile, fatuous stroll in the park at Old Trafford, where a Manchester United team, far worse than the one that went down in 1974, lay down and died without a fight. We scored two simple, textbook goals from perfect crosses by Hall and Gordon, as the obvious weaknesses of the home side played right into our hands. If Tonali had scored instead of hitting the inside of the post, we could have given them a thumping for the ages, but why bother exhausting ourselves? When Tonali nutmegged the referee, I couldn’t stop laughing for about 10 minutes. The game was in the bag after 20 minutes and we didn’t need to exert ourselves further. Ignoring our opponents’ weaknesses, the game saw us end 2024 in 5th place. We’ve won 9, drawn 5 and lost 5 of the first set of fixtures, giving us 32 points thus far. If we continue to play with the tempo, flair and verve, we should be looking to improve on that and finish top 4, though I’d much rather we won the League Cup. Being selfish, I really want to see a good win against Bromley.
Can things go wrong? Injuries, loss of form or bad luck can derail our progress. I do seriously doubt we will be busy in the transfer market. Howe has already sought to dampen speculation about arrivals. At least if we do remain inactive, it will provide True Faith with something to twist their faces about, which will please them no end.
