Newcastle United have quietly shaken off their tag of parking the bus from recent seasons under Eddie Howe. In United's first season back in the Premier League it was pretty much universally accepted that Rafa Benitez, due to financial constraints, didn't have much of an option other than to play with a five-man defence and wait patiently for opportunities on the counter-attack.
Benitez was starting to evolve in the club's second season in the top-flight in 2018/19 after signing Miguel Almiron and playing further up the pitch. Under Steve Bruce, the former Manchester United captain vowed to play "on the front-foot" on a balmy night in Edinburgh after beating Hibernian 3-1.
But by autumn, and after a 5-0 defeat at Leicester, Bruce told reporters that the squad had grown too accustomed to playing with a five-man defence and it was going to take time to get them to play more attacking football. This resulted in some heavy criticism for Bruce not least because he had almost £80million of attacking talent at his disposal in Allan Saint-Maximin, Joelinton and Almiron.
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Right up until Bruce's last few games, Newcastle played with five at the back but under Howe they have operated mainly with a 3-4-3 or 4-3-3 formation. Playing with less fear has coincided with Newcastle's seven match unbeaten run in the Premier League and the steady climb to 14th no less.
Even a victory over Brighton & Hove Albion won't be enough for Newcastle to move up the table any further this weekend. But they can certainly cement that 14th place spot if they win and others slip up elsewhere.
And I again expect them to get forward and create chances like they did against Brentford when they served up 26 opportunities in or around the box. At 2-0 against a team with 10 men it would have been easy to sit back and be content with the victory and a comfortable enough scoreline.
Far from it under Howe with Ryan Fraser offering a snippet of the head coach's team talk when he said: "The gaffer told us to try and win by three or four, but 2-0, a clean sheet in the Premier League and getting three points with the fans buzzing is all that matters!" Such a cavalier approach had almost become alien to Newcastle fans in recent years but the backroom team and squad are proving there's more than one way to stave off the threat of relegation.
The bigger project could be an exciting one under Howe who arrived on Tyneside with a reputation of playing offensive football. Indeed, his long run of matches as a Premier League boss over six top-flight seasons he has only opted to go with five at the back six times.
The return of Callum Wilson could also see him field Saint-Maximin, Callum Wilson and Ryan Fraser in what would be a potent front three. Given Fraser's partnership with Wilson at AFC Bournemouth, which we haven't really seen much of at Newcastle due to respective injuries, that could make for a strong finish to the current campaign.
