If there is a civil war raging in the background, it seems to be suiting Newcastle very well. For all the tension between the manager, Eddie Howe, and the sporting director, Paul Mitchell, they have won three and drawn one of their opening four games of the season, leaving them third on goal difference behind Arsenal in second.
It was not a perfect display from Newcastle, far from it. A lot of the limitations of their squad were clear, but Howe took decisive action with a triple substitution at half-time and had his reward as one of the players he brought on, Harvey Barnes, scored a brilliant winner with 10 minutes remaining, cutting in from the left past Nélson Semedo and smashing a 25-yard drive inside the far post.
“Winning is everything,” Howe said, before a line that seemed extremely pointed. “The best way to do that is to be unified – that means the players, the supporters and the coaching staff and I’ll do everything to keep that unity.”
This is Newcastle’s best start to a Premier League season in 29 years – “a great platform,” Howe said. He acknowledged, though, that there is still work to be done. “It fell in line with other games this season. We’ve played really well in passages but not all the way through. What shines through is the ability to find a way through. We can get better but on the whole it was an improvement.”
For Wolves, the sense of anxiety is mounting. They have won just one of their last 14 Premier League games, taking just six points from the past 42 available. There were promising signs on the counterattack, but plenty of teams have found that ruts, once got into, are not easily departed.
“There was an awful lot of good in it,” Gary O’Neil insisted, “but two moments have cost us points – one unfortunate and one really disappointing. We knew the run of fixtures was tough but today’s performance and how far we pushed a Newcastle side who were in the Champions League last season … there was a lot of good in that. I see a team that stuck together, produced an awful lot of quality and went toe-to-toe with a team who are going to be higher up the league than us.”
It was a dank grey afternoon to match the general mood, the brutalist School of Art looming through the murk above the Sir Jack Hayward Stand like a terrible warning of utopias past, dominating the Wolverhampton skyline in a way Jørgen Strand Larsen has yet to manage.
Larsen, though, is far more than his extreme height and he played a key role in Wolves’ opener, which came as a double surprise both in that it was the home side who took the lead, and in the quality of the move. It began with Sean Longstaff’s pass being intercepted then, as Wolves broke, Larsen held off Dan Burn before crossing low. João Gomes stepped over it, wrongfooting Newcastle’s retreating defence, leaving Mario Lemina a simple finish.
Newcastle had looked the livelier against a distinctly rickety Wolves back four, Anthony Gordon hitting a post. He had impressed for England during the international break and he had another dangerous game, but the concern before half-time was that he was responsible for the vast majority of Newcastle’s attacking spark. Alexander Isak has not yet been at his best this season, while right wing was an area Newcastle sought, without success, to strengthen in the summer and Jacob Murphy was, at best, only intermittently creative. Barnes has looked menacing but, like Gordon, he prefers to be on the left.
Howe’s solution, conditioned by an eye injury Isak sustained just before half-time, was to make a triple change at the break, with Barnes replacing Isak and Gordon moving into the centre. Joelinton, booked for a frustrated challenge towards the end of the first half, and Longstaff were also withdrawn, with Sandro Tonali and Joe Willock coming on.
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The pattern, though, remained similar to the first half: Newcastle with the ball and Wolves with the threat. Larsen and Matheus Cunha both hit a post, and Nick Pope made a number of fine saves. Then, with quarter of an hour remaining, a speculative Fabian Schär shot glanced off Craig Dawson and looped over Sam Johnstone’s dive to equalise. But if that was fortunate, the winner, five minutes later, was exceptional.
Howe’s job now is to work out if there is a way to generate threat on the right and to protect a central defence that struggled with Larsen, issues at least in part caused by the failure to reinforce this summer. But for now, after the anticlimactic nature of last season, the comparative lack of action in the transfer market and the background rumblings, 10 points from four games represents an extremely positive start.
