This Newcastle United game looks much tougher now
Newcastle United's away Premier League form is a concern for Eddie Howe – and the club's toughest tests are yet to come.
It will not be long before Newcastle United are on the road again,
Much has been said and written about the club’s away form this season.
Eddie Howe’s team, yet to win on their travels in the Premier League, suffered a 3-1 loss to Brentford before the international break a week after losing to West Ham United in the capital by the same scoreline.
Newcastle, normally so hard to play against, were beaten too easily for the liking of Howe and the club’s fanbase.
After losing to Brentford, United’s head coach said: “We haven’t done our jobs, and we feel we’ve let everybody down.”
However, some of the toughest trips are yet to come. The club has not yet played Arsenal, Manchester City or Chelsea, the division’s top three as it stands, away from home.
Nor have they travelled to the team which is fourth in the division – Sunderland.
Earlier this month, I reported on two games at the Stadium of Light for The Guardian.
And what struck me during the second fixture, a 2-2 draw against Arsenal which ended the Premier League leaders’ 10-game winning run in all competitions, was just how hard Regis Le Bris’ team is to play against.
Sunderland did to Arsenal what Newcastle have previously done to Mikel Arteta’s side at St James’ Park. They were physical, and pressed them high. They unsettled them, and attacked with pace and purpose.
The club’s slogan since the play-offs has been “Til The End”, and they claimed a point thanks to an injury-time goal from Brian Brobbey.
Newcastle United, Bilbao and an idea for a special friendly
Define success for Newcastle United this season.
Newcastle, sixth in the Champions League table and level on points with Paris Saint-Germain after three successive European wins, visit the Stadium of Light on December 14, and they will face a very different side to the one they comfortably beat 3-0 in the FA Cup two seasons ago.
Sunderland have changed manager since then. And the club has also changed a lot of players.
The gap between the Championship and Premier League was evident in that cup tie, but Sunderland, whose fans can use the new £31million Keel Crossing to cross the Wear for games, have bridged the gap this season thanks to Le Bris’ management and a strong summer in the transfer market.
Sunderland, though, will lose up to seven players to the Africa Cup of Nations next month.
United will only lose DR Congo’s Yoane Wissa, a summer signing they have had to make do without so far due to injury.
According to the Premier League, “there is a possibility that some players will leave early for the tournament” ahead of the round of fixtures which includes the Wear-Tyne derby.
Newcastle have six games before the Sunderland game, including Champions League fixtures away to Olympique Marseille and Bayer Leverkusen, and a first visit to Everton’s new stadium, but the first league derby in more than eight years will be on the horizon very soon.
It has been more than 14 years since the club last won a Premier League fixture at the Stadium of Light.
On a bright August afternoon in 2011, Ryan Taylor wrote himself into Geordie folklore when he lifted a free-kick over the wall.
As the last few jubilant away fans left the stadium, I sat down in the dugout with a colleague to interview him.
I told him: “You have no idea yet what you have just done!”
All these years later, that goal is still celebrated in song.
And, for all the club’s struggles away from home this season, a new folk hero could emerge at the Stadium of Light.
St James’ Park’s Euro 2028 host status
Five Euro 2028 games will be played at St James’ Park.
And England could play a Round of 16 fixture at the stadium, one of nine tournament host venues, should they top their group.
Last week’s announcement took me back to 1996, when the stadium staged three European Championship group fixtures.
A student at the time, I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer in the media centre, a temporary building behind the Gallowgate end of the ground, for the tournament.
The work itself was mundane – there was a lot of photocopying and faxing – but the experience of working behind the scenes at the tournament was anything but mundane.
I was in awe of some of the big-name players, among them Zinedine Zidane, Gheorghe Hagi, Hristo Stoichkov, who represented their countries at St James’ Park that summer.
That all said, I did skip one of the Euro 96 games at St James’ Park.
Instead of watching France v Bulgaria, at was at Wembley, sat along from a bowler-hatted Dutchman (see photograph below), to see England beat Holland 4-1.
Alan Shearer was among the scorers on an unforgettable afternoon at the national stadium.
Euro 96 was particularly memorable, and the prospect of another international tournament coming to St James’ Park is an exciting one.
Whatever the future holds holds for St James’ Park amid the need for a higher capacity, the city and it’s iconic stadium are perfect for Euro 2028.