There is an Eddie Howe quote from three years ago that became an unofficial mantra for Newcastle United in their insurgent phase.
“We’re not here to be popular and get other teams to like us,” he said in 2023. “We’re here to compete.”
The intention back then was to send a very clear signal to the elite that Newcastle were ready to show sharp elbows to muscle their way into the established order. Having done just that in two of the last three seasons (culminating in a glorious Carabao Cup win against Liverpool almost a year ago), they have spent much of this season struggling to hang onto the coattails of the very best.
It has been a campaign of moments. In spells, if you screw your eyes tight, you can see the team of the last few years in there. In 35 minutes at Anfield they built the perfect platform to win the game, bamboozling Liverpool with an energetic, rapier-like attack that harked back to the best days of Howeball. But they were not able to maintain it, and ended the contest looking like the very definition of a mid-table side.
In that respect we can add it to the first half against Chelsea before Christmas, a second half played with 10 men against the Reds at the start of the season and a fine recent display against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup that ultimately counted for little in a 2-0 defeat. They have become a team that threatens but can’t quite manage to close it out.
Is that a failing of mentality, game management or are they simply not good enough? You almost hope it is the one of the first two because the third option can only be fixed in the transfer window, and Newcastle’s record in recent ones has been decidedly average, at best. There are certainly no new major signings arriving before Monday night.
Defeat at Liverpool means Newcastle now have five points from a possible 24 against teams in the top six of the Premier League. Their sole win is against Manchester City – and a fine victory it was too – but twice in successive domestic fixtures Newcastle have ended up being well-beaten by rivals for the Champions League. That feels ominous.
There is an irony here because among Europe’s elite they are starting to look at home. They were an off-balance Harvey Barnes effort away from deservedly defeating Paris Saint-Germain in midweek and are firm favourites to make the last 16 of that competition with Azerbaijan’s Qarabag FK standing in their way.
Their set up and focus in the Champions League has been generally flawless but in the Premier League something is off. Bruno Guimaraes is a huge miss but this Liverpool team felt like they were there for the taking.
Howe obviously felt that way, leaving Barnes and Anthony Gordon out of his starting XI on Wednesday to allow him to attack at Anfield. Gordon spearheaded a team brimming with pace and direct attacking on Saturday evening and for half an hour it paid off. Gordon even got a goal from open play, a superb finish that became a distant memory by the end of a chastening evening.
You can spin nights like this – and Newcastle’s recent run of form – in a positive way, of course. It wasn’t all negative. But the overall picture is increasingly a pessimistic one: that they are not really in the race for next season’s Champions League because when they play another team competing for the top five they don’t win. That is the pattern this season.
They now require snookers to haul themselves back into contention. They go to Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea in their remaining fixtures: given how much ground they have to make up they will need to win at least one of those, perhaps even two. None of those venues are happy hunting grounds and Newcastle’s away record is grim.
This is a transitional season at St James’ Park and it was always going to be that the moment the Alexander Isak saga rumbled into late August. Something can still be salvaged from it but there is no escaping the fact that they have lost ground on the very best this season. There is so much work to do.
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