Wembley is only 14 miles from here but, despite Newcastle’s victory, this was light years from where they’ll need to be if they’re to beat Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday.
Eddie Howe will argue that the final is a new day and that his team will rise to the big occasion. He’ll also point to this being an important win in its own right, even if it was unsightly, and boy was it that.
For the large part, it was like watching a pre-season friendly, only minus the nice weather, and both teams were as guilty as each other. When does the Premier League football start, you wondered after an hour of goalless and joyless inaction.
England boss Thomas Tuchel was here, yet he too would have been wondering why. This felt like one to watch from the sofa in Germany – at least you can turn a TV off.
But Newcastle found a way to win thanks to a combination between the game’s two best players, captain and scorer Bruno Guimaraes and creator Harvey Barnes. The latter has probably played his way into the team ahead of the final, but the former’s chances off lifting the cup would still appear unlikely.
If you were being kind to Newcastle, you’d say they were keeping something in the tank for Sunday. If you were being more realistic, you’d say that the gauge is too close to empty.
Not so long ago, they started games – especially away from home – with aggression, energy and intent. They were the masters of their destiny. They beat Manchester United, Tottenham and Arsenal in a week in early January. Before this, only Southampton had been beaten on the road since in the Premier League, and some of that was a struggle.
Howe had hoped that the adversity of last week – the loss of Anthony Gordon to suspension and Lewis Hall and Sven Botman to injury – would engender a siege mentality among his players, bringing the squad closer together. Well, they nearly fell apart inside one minute.
Tomas Soucek’s miss was so early that he no doubt hoped the water left to flow would wash over his howler. But this was too bad to forget. Newcastle’s new-look defence, auditioning for Wembley, held firm for all of 45 seconds before Fabian Schar allowed Mohammed Kudus to cross from the left and Tino Livramento’s wild clearance played in Soucek.
The Czech had only Nick Pope to beat from six yards. He beat the goalkeeper all right, but he also beat the crossbar and a few hundred folk in the low rows, too.
If this was Newcastle’s cup-final blueprint, you could not imagine Mo Salah forgoing that sort of generosity. Darwin Nunez, perhaps. But Salah can wait – the more immediate concern was Kudus and Jarrod Bowen, both of whom drew saves from Pope before the half hour. Easy saves, it should be said.
At the other end, Barnes did make Alphonse Areola work a little harder. The winger turned one improvised flick on target and did the same with a header from a corner, both repelled by the French keeper. Areola was sporting a new Freddie Mercury moustache and had the boot-polish barnet to complete the look. That, however, was as close as the first half got to entertainment.
The game was there for the taking, but that was dependent on one of these sides showing something good enough to take it. Isak was isolated and touched the ball only three times in West Ham’s penalty area come the break. That count actually felt excessive, given how little he had been involved.
Newcastle could not start the second half with such lethargy, surely? That was right – they started it in an even deeper malaise. Kudus was given space to break free on the left and he flashed a ball across the goalmouth that deserved to be converted. It was in keeping with West Ham’s own dearth of ambition that it zipped through an open green space absent of both attackers and defenders – and this is where the action is meant to happen!
It said much about the contest that, when Newcastle then came very close to scoring on the hour, it was because of West Ham defender Max Kilman’s miskick. In fairness, Guimaraes’ ball in behind for Jacob Murphy was a rare moment of quality that was well executed. The winger centred and Kilman sent a clumsy swipe spiralling towards the top corner, where Areola sprung to claw clear before Isak turned over from the rebound.
The passage snapped the visitors from their slumber and, within two minutes, they had what proved to be the winning goal. Barnes saw a scuffed shot blocked and, deterred by that effort, he elected to cross when the ball landed back at his feet. It was the right call. Hanging a delivery above Kilman and dropping it inside the six-yard area, Guimaraes slid in to poke home.
It was a goal and it was a win – returning Newcastle to sixth and level on points with Manchester City in fifth – but it was also a game that would have made comfortable viewing for Liverpool, even if it was anything but for everyone else.
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