Newcastle 2-1 Tottenham (Barnes 37′, Isak 78′ | Burn 56′ og)
ST JAMES’ PARK — Newcastle United may have lost the transfer window but they keep winning games.
A summer of frayed patience and recruitment regression has shaken faith at St James’ Park so this felt like a significant victory to end one of the most difficult weeks of Eddie Howe’s tenure.
“Massive” was the phrase he landed on to describe it afterwards and with club chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan and various other representatives of majority owners the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia present, he was not dealing in hyperbole. The manner of the victory sent a message.
Al-Rumayyan was sat between chief executive Darren Eales and director of football Paul Mitchell here, his presence apparently a visible show of support in the club’s power brokers after a testing transfer window that saw Newcastle fail to land a single player capable of lifting the level of their starting XI.
Sources, however, say that for all the noise, the feeling inside the club is “calm”.
The usual post-window review will be held over the next fortnight but it seems as if there will be no blame game in the boardroom.
Still, wins like this have the capacity to change seasons – especially when they arrive with the team still struggling to get out of third gear.
At the same stage as this last season Newcastle played well but carelessly let a lead slip to 10-man Liverpool. Momentum in their chase for the top four was never really regained. Beating Tottenham Hotspur while playing so far below their best might well have the opposite effect this term.
And make no mistake, they had to trawl their reserves of character to prevail here.
Their trademark aggression remains absent and there was little fluency about their work but they found a way even with their brightest attacking sparks continuing to flicker in and out of games.
It summed up this contest that Dan Burn – largely excellent – put through his own net while Alexander Isak – largely anonymous – rolled home the winner.
“It was massive. You need to win at any stage but when there’s difficult moments – and this transfer window has been tough for us – it’s even more important,” Howe said.
“It enables you to see things more clearly and move foward with positive momentum.”
Sometimes playing badly and prevailing is an ominous portent but it doesn’t necessarily feel like that at St James’ Park.
Their transfer failures may yet come back to bite Howe but the overall feel is of a team that will get better as the nights draw in.
The honesty in Howe’s appraisal of this win was encouraging, as was his reassurance afterwards that there has not been a jolt away from the energy and aggression which accompanied their run to the Champions League places in 2023.
“I don’t think we’re playing as we’d like, that’s obvious,” he said.
Howe confessed that Anthony Gordon is undercooked after a stop-start summer with England rather than suffering from a lack of focus after those unsettling links to Liverpool.
“I don’t think we’re playing with enough control or enough composure but what we are showing is the defensive and aggressive qualities you need to win football matches,” was his succinct summary.
It was certainly the case that Newcastle’s defensive players were the better performers.
Joelinton stemmed the tide when Spurs were overrunning the midfield and a word too for unheralded Emil Krafth, playing for only the second time as a centre-back in a back four.
He managed to snuff out Son Heung-min and was a big reason why Brennan Johnson – summoned from the bench at the interval to good effect by Ange Postecoglou – was unable to convert some of his good work into goals.
Of the others Harvey Barnes was lethal in the penalty box, steering home Lloyd Kelly’s cross to hand Newcastle the lead in an edgy first half.
Nick Pope performed heroics but inexplicably parried James Maddison’s effort into Johnson’s path in the run-up to Tottenham’s equaliser.
You feared the worst but Newcastle’s resolve wrestled the game back from the brink.
So where now? Al-Rumayyan’s presence suggests inertia isn’t an option. This version of Newcastle will not be hiding away seems to be the message.
What PIF made of the fractured summer remains the topic on everyone’s lips, even if the team are handily placed heading into the international break.
While Newcastle failed in one regard, Howe suggested money saved would be reinvested to give them a stronger position in the transfer market. What it felt like was a mess, the electricity of a late bid for Anthony Elanga fizzling out almost as soon as the link had emerged.
Newcastle insiders suggest excitable talk of a £50m offer being lodged is inaccurate, a spin being applied to the story to make Nottingham Forest look good for resisting it. He is a player of interest – one that they might return to in January – but there was no blind panic.
Howe will certainly be relieved that the focus can return to football. He namechecked out-of-favour Jamal Lewis as one player who might escape through one of the transfer windows that remain open across global football but a story linking Kieran Trippier with a move to Turkey was firmly dismissed.
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