I have seen this type of thing before, these laughable attempts to undermine Eddie Howe and his Newcastle United team’s achievements.
This week was simply more of the same.
Newcastle United hammering Qarabag FK 6-1 in Azerbaijan, 5-0 up by half-time.
A stunning Champions League performance.
Apparently not. Not according to some.
The reasoning being, apparently, if Newcastle United did this to their Champions League opposition, then Qarabag FK must be hopeless.
For me, it was a case of Newcastle United making the opposition look terrible, when blowing them away inside 45 minutes.
It was an Eddie Howe masterclass, Qarabag must have been astonished to see Newcastle United go all out attack away from home in such an important match. The brave high press from the first whistle and time after time United players winning possession in dangerous areas, the home defenders put under constant pressure and regularly seeing five or six NUFC players surging towards their goal at pace.
The first half saw some extraordinary stats, Newcastle United having 16 shots with 11 of them on target, Qarabag having not a single shot of any kind in that opening half as they were overwhelmed. The Expected Goals stats were a staggering 4,49 for Eddie Howe’s side by the break, whilst Qarabag 0.00.
It was pretty much unprecedented and the excellent Ally McCoist giving United full credit on the commentary.
Other media not so much, nor indeed certain fans of other clubs.
One comment from a fan of a club not a million miles away from Tyneside, a club that has only ever played four European matches in their entire history and those games 50+ years ago, that fan comment summing up what many others wanting to claim. This particular Mackem declaring that any Premier League or Championship team would have done the same as Newcastle United did in Azerbaijan.
You have to laugh. Sunderland fans experts on something that they have no personal experience of, so dismissive of European experienced Qarabag, their fans in Azerbaijan wouldn’t even know what a ‘Sunderland’ was if you asked them if they’d ever seen a Mackem in Baku.
It is strange that when Chelsea played in Baku three months earlier, they were lucky to pick up a 2-2 draw against Qarabag. Any team that reaches this stage of the Champions League hasn’t fluked it.
Qarabag won at home against FC Copenhagen and Eintracht Frankfurt, as well as winning 3-2 away at Benfica. That is Benfica who won 4-2 against Real Madrid in their final Swiss League match to make it into the play-off round.
Two seasons ago, Bayer Leverkusen won the Bundesliga and were runners up in the Europa League. On the way to the final they were fortunate to reach the quarter-finals when winning 5-4 on aggregate in their last 16 tie against Qarabag.
Ahead of Wednesday night’s match, I was regularly seeing a media opinion that a draw would be a good result for Newcastle and if they could get a narrow win, that would be very good.
United are so good and go 5-0 up by half-time but that then means simply the opposition must be terrible. Talk about moving the goalposts!
It all felt very much like Newcastle United’s first Champions League away match this season, the stunning 4-0 demolition of Union S-G. That was also met with “Well, they must be useless if Newcastle United have done that…”
This despite Union S-G having been European regulars in recent seasons, defeating the likes of Braga, Union Berlin, Nice, Fenerbahce and…Liverpool. Union S-G in this season’s Champions League also winning against PSV, Atalanta and Galtasaray.
Newcastle United have been threatening to do this for a while, what they did to Qarabag. So many matches we have seen Eddie Howe’s side create so many chances but score only a couple, instead of the five or six they’ve plenty of times looked capable of.
Kevin Keegan did something very similar when United returned to Europe in 1994, in the first UEFA Cup match of that season, NUFC went to Antwerp and won 5-0!
Eddie Howe regularly sends his team out to try and win it early, sometimes it produces huge rewards, 5-0 against Spurs in 21 minutes!
Only poor finishing and even poorer match officials prevented Newcastle doing something similar to Chelsea this season. How on earth they escaped with a 2-2 draw defied belief.
As I said earlier, the general ‘expert’ opinion was that a one goal win would have been a great result for Newcastle United in Azerbaijan. I agree. I think that leading 5-0 and cruising to a 6-1 final scoreline, deserves something many levels above a great result.
Outstanding, that would be my word for it.