Saturday’s match ended Newcastle 2 Brentford 3.
Ahead of each game we ask one of our writers to come up with three positives and three negatives following the game.
Plenty to talk about after this Brentford one!
A match that ebbed and flowed as both teams took the lead, only each time seeing the opposition equalise, only for Newcastle United to lose it late on.
On this occasion it is ‘Matt Busby said to Joe Harvey…’:
NEGATIVES
The knives are out
It’s fair to say that the knives are out from some Newcastle United fans for Eddie Howe.
The amount of toxicity within that part of the NUFC fanbase surrounding our manager is astonishing, considering everything that he’s achieved during his tenure.
The toxicity is a distraction and isn’t needed, nor warranted in my view. Negativity breads negativity and all that.
No case for the defence?
We’ve just been turned over by Brentford, our third defeat on the bounce, ten goals shipped in the process. Our defending is ragged and it needs to improve.
Trippier’s legs have gone and yet there’s no respite for him.
Ditto Thiaw, which is a terrible shame given how many plaudits and MOTM awards he’s received since joining from AC.
Looking over our shoulders?
As teams struggled to hit any rhythm earlier in the season, there were two (probably) Champions League places up for grabs as well as other routes into Europe within our grasp. Indeed, those three consecutive wins at the turn of the year (Burnley, Palace and Leeds) had propelled us right into the mix.
A month down the line, the likes of Man Utd and Chelsea appear to be getting their act together. Likewise Liverpool and even ‘little’ Brentford.
We are now as close to third bottom as we are fifth from top.
POSITIVES
Top Manager
Stubborn, clueless, ’65 minutes’, won’t change from 4-3-3, his signings are terrible, not elite, taken us as far as he can…….
Some of the rubbish that I hear week in week out from certain Newcastle United fans, about the most successful manager in my lifetime (I’m not including Joe Harvey as he wasn’t in charge of first team affairs by the time I first attended SJP).
I was highly critical of Eddie Howe after we lost at Chelsea last season and I hadn’t been too enamoured when he first arrived on the scene in 2021.
After he landed us the League Cup, I vowed never to get sucked into such pettiness ever again.
This isn’t blind faith.
Losing football matches is an inevitability. Even that invincible side that Arsene Wenger won the Premier League with in 2004, lost cup ties that season.
Eddie Howe is hamstrung by PSR and that’s not a cop out, it defines everything a football club can do in the modern era and to have achieved what he has, all things considered, is quite remarkable.
Bigger picture
Our summer signings haven’t set the heather alight. Even the optimist in me has to admit that.
Pre-season was a joke, disrupted by you know who’s disgraceful antics and an inability to attract first choice targets because of financial constraints.
After the September international break, tarting with the game against Wolves on 13 September 2025 when Nick Woltemade’s headed goal won us the game, Newcastle United has played 36 games up to and including yesterday. That’s one game every four days on average. And there’s no respite, we play seven times in the next 22 days.
Eddie Howe cannot work with the players with this kind of schedule. Nor can he work with those who are injured.
This season might fizzle out, we’ll find out in the next three weeks, but I can see new recruits in the next window and there’ll be time for Eddie to work his magic with those who arrived last summer.
I think we’ll come out of the traps with renewed purpose and vigour next season.
All still to play for
Let’s not give up on the lads just yet, we are still fighting on three fronts and whilst a Champions League place has surely gone, we can still aim for a top eight finish.
Villa away in the Cup looks a nailed on defeat, if you subscribe to all the doom and gloom, but you just never know. What price we can get past them and get a home draw against a lower division side in the fifth round?
Then there’s the Champions League. I think we’ll have too much for Qarabag and who knows what’ll happen if we play either Chelsea or Barcelona in the round of 16?
The injuries and the fatigue is real, so this might be me looking at things through rose coloured specs, but when it comes to Newcastle United, all my life has been spent wondering what it must be like to support a team that is competing on multiple fronts, having to balance a demanding schedule with making progress.
This is Newcastle United right here, right now and I’m loving it.