These are testing times on Tyneside.
Three defeats from their opening four games was not part of the blueprint for a season when Newcastle United reintroduce themselves to Europe’s elite. For all the delight at landing a glamorous Champions League group, and the obvious mitigation of a difficult start, they have failed the first big domestic tests.
So what has happened? And what will happen now? Insiders say there is no sense of disquiet. But with Brentford and then AC Milan coming in quick succession after the international break, all eyes will be on how Eddie Howe and his team react.
A natural reset?
Fourth place was no fluke last season for Newcastle, but the team did overachieve. Sustaining that level of success without breaking Financial Fair Play rules is extremely challenging.
Newcastle have fine players but not two XIs that could challenge for the league like Manchester City. And with Brighton building, Spurs purring and Liverpool flexing their muscles again, it feels like the top six is more competitive than ever, even with Chelsea and Manchester United looking underwhelming.
Top five gets you in the Champions League – they want to challenge for that but know that the addition of European football this season places an onerous burden on the squad. The worry at Newcastle right now is that the dip has come before the Tuesday and Wednesday nights kick in.
Defensive strength blown apart
“Intensity is our identity” is the mantra at Newcastle but they looked like a mess on Saturday, error-strewn and leaving huge gaps in areas where they were swarming opposition players last season.
Sven Botman’s absence makes a profound difference, while Nick Pope has now delivered successive poor performances, which was unheard of last season.
Newcastle built from the back last season and must get back to doing the basics right.
Midfield mix
Just as bruising as the manner of the defeat at the Amex was the news that emerged in the aftermath that Joe Willock will be missing for a further six weeks with a new Achilles injury. How desperately the midfield need the balance that he provides.
It is clear that the team’s Rolls-Royce duo of Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali, who was expensively extricated from Milan over the summer as a statement signing, is not yet purring. Tonali has been the better of the pair, dictating play in spells and helping Newcastle break the lines of opposition teams – as they suspected he would.
But Guimaraes has fallen below his own sky-high standards. The theory was that adding Tonali would allow the Brazil midfielder the freedom to play as a true box-to-box midfielder and be freed of some of the defensive responsibilities that anchored him down. So far, that is not happening.
Did Newcastle err in not adding the No 6 they have long coveted to their midfield mix? So far their recruitment has been stellar but this transfer window call could prove to be a mistake, forcing Howe to either find a formula to make his two star names work together or bench one of them.
Is it Callum Wilson’s time?
Howe built his success last season on a settled XI and has attempted to replicate it this term, only making one injury-forced change. He runs the risk of looking out of ideas if he does the same again against Brentford, considering the options he can call on.
Step forward Callum Wilson, with two goals in 96 minutes of football and the only player to emerge from the weekend with credit.
Reintegrating him would require a tactical rejig, but when in form he is worth that. Handing Alexander Isak a wider role to cut in from and benching the thus-far disappointing Miguel Almiron would be welcome by-products of a Wilson recall.
Don’t panic
Howe has banked a huge amount of credit over the last 18 months and i has been told he would retain the faith of the club’s hierarchy even if the club’s poor start continued. Howe is tactically clued in, a workaholic and viewed as a polymath capable of managing a dressing room, putting on a sharp session and treading the tightrope of maintaining perspective while dealing with enhanced expectations. He makes average players better, turning Joelinton from a disastrous No 9 into a Brazil international holding midfielder.
As CEO Darren Eales said on Amazon’s fluff piece We Are Newcastle United when discussing how they could outmuscle clubs with much bigger wage bills: “Eddie Howe.” But Newcastle are a club in a hurry that have spent hundreds of millions on turbocharging their progress and Howe knows that ambitious clubs want to see continual progress. It is not so much about results but about performances, and the manner of the defeat against Brighton was unforgivable.
They have played four of last season’s top seven on the spin. After Brentford, they face two newly promoted sides on the bounce and further losses will put a different gloss on the rhetoric.
There will be no panic on Tyneside but Howe is savvy enough to know a response is required.
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