The Premier League season is back. I can’t wait for 3pm Saturday, a St James’ Park matchday and to see Eddie Howe’s Mags back in competitive action.
Pre-season results have been solid and there’s plenty of reasons to be hopeful heading into the 2024/25 campaign, but it has been a bit of a chaotic summer on Tyneside so far, with a mad end to June’s PSR deadline – where we reluctantly sold Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson – followed by the departures of Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi.
After that came the arrival of new sporting director Paul Mitchell, who is yet to show his transfer acumen just yet but arrives with a superb track record. His first signing was Danish striker Will Osula, who arrives after Lloyd Kelly (free), Lewis Hall (£28m), Odysseas Vlachodimos and John Ruddy (free).
The concern is we’re yet to sign anyone who immediately improves our first 11, but we’re still working on a deal for Crystal Palace centre-back Marc Guehi (for now) and may also sign a much-needed right-winger. However, signings aside, there’s so much to be positive about in the existing squad.
Star trio Bruno Guimaraes, Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon look set to stay, Sandro Tonali is back soon, key players we missed last season are fit again in Nick Pope, Joelinton, Joe Willock and Harvey Barnes, Eddie Howe stayed despite interest from England, James Bunce – our new performance director – will hopefully improve our recent injury record, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento are top talents who are only getting better, Trevan Sanusi has had a breakthrough pre-season and the fact we’re not in Europe – which is a real shame – could benefit our Premier League form while other top six rivals attempt to strike a balance.
First up, we have newly-promoted Southampton, who are yet to re-sign Ryan Fraser but have former Mag Adam Armstrong in their ranks and a highly-rated young manager in Russell Martin, who likes to play out from the back and play a possession game. They are back in the Premier League after beating Leeds in the play-off final back in May and will be out to cause an upset this weekend.
Here’s a recap of our pre-season results and goalscorers (mostly Jacob Murphy!) before we get to Eddie Howe’s pre-match quotes, team news and predictions:
- 22nd July – SpVgg Unterhaching 1-3 Newcastle (⚽ Barnes ⚽ Murphy ⚽ Isak)
- 27th July – Hull City 0-2 Newcastle (⚽ Isak, ⚽ Murphy)
- 31st July – Urawa Red Diamonds 1-4 Newcastle (⚽ Isak, ⚽⚽ Murphy, ⚽ Hall)
- 3rd August – Yokohama F. Marinos 2-0 Newcastle
- 9th August – Newcastle 4-0 Girona (⚽⚽ Longstaff, ⚽ Murphy, ⚽ Gordon)
- 10th August – Newcastle 1-0 Stade Brest (⚽ Barnes)
Eddie Howe’s message
“There is always a great feeling before the start of the season. We’ve had a good pre-season, we are in good shape. The lads have worked really well. It’s been an intense period, as it always is.
“Your preference is always the first game to be at home, we know the supporters will be with us, we know how important they will be to us. We have to do our bit.”
“We have evolved the squad, that is not always necessarily in terms of personnel. We’re trying to do that all the time. We’re trying to add layers to our game. We’re trying to improve. I think we have done that in pre-season.
“Obviously, the proof will be in what we deliver going into the season. I think the players we have here and the squad we have is in a good place and ready to play.”
Team news
Fabian Schar is fine despite limping off in last weekend’s pre-season win over Brest, but it’ll be interesting to see if Kieran Trippier and Anthony Gordon are fit to start after an extended summer break after Euro 2024 and only 45 minutes of action in pre-season.
Sandro Tonali (ineligible) won’t be back until August 28th (the likely date for our Carabao Cup trip to Nottingham Forest) and we’ll start the season without Callum Wilson (back), Lewis Miley (foot), Sven Botman (ACL) and Jamaal Lascelles (ACL). Matt Targett (Achilles) is back in training but he’s well down the pecking order now.
Predicted line-up: (4-3-3) Pope – Trippier, Schar, Burn, Hall – Longstaff, Bruno, Joelinton – Murphy, Isak, Gordon.
I believe there’s probably one three dilemmas for Eddie Howe going into this one. Lloyd Kelly or Dan Burn as the left-sided centre-back, Kieran Trippier or Tino Livramento at right-back and Anthony Gordon or Harvey Barnes on the left wing?
Starting at centre-back, I think Howe will ease Kelly in and opt with Burn for now, who has played 348 pre-season minutes compared to Kelly’s 135. Schar did partner Kelly in our final friendly against Brest, but he has played alongside Burn on plenty of occasions.
At right-back, I think Tino will get the nod ahead of Trippier against his former club. He looks in great shape – he’s clearly been hitting the gym this summer – and is ready for a big season, while Trippier has only played 69 minutes of pre-season after a long summer with England and extended break.
On the left wing, Gordon strikes me as the sort of player who’ll be desperate to play – and I think he will. He’s only played 45 minutes over pre-season, starting our first half mauling of Girona last Friday, but he’s the heartbeat of our attack, has had a full week of training and will be keen to prove a point after his frustrating lack of minutes at the Euros. It could be a big season for Barnes, but Gordon has to start down the left if fit enough.
Prediction: Newcastle 3-1 Southampton
Despite the transfer frustrations, I am feeling really confident going into this one and think we’ll beat the Saints pretty comfortably.
We have a world class midfielder in Bruno Guimaraes and one of the best strikers on the planet in Alexander Isak, and I think both will run riot here, with Joelinton also back to boss the midfield and Jacob Murphy hoping to build on his brilliant pre-season form.
Isak to run riot and Eddie’s Mags to get off to the perfect start at St James’ Park!
Good article mate. Looking forward to finally getting into the season!
Gilly Toon(Quote)
Man Utd have done it again – picked up from last season – 2nd best all game but pull off a win 🙄
Sharpy17(Quote)
Mental isn’t it.
kimtoon(Quote)
Kim – what’s mental is they have 70k cheering that eye sore 😖.
The money they have spent, and the dispensation they’ve been given to circumvent the rules & they are still that ugly 🤢
Sharpy17(Quote)
At home to Saints, first game of the season – I only see a win & a great atmosphere.
I would love for it to be a really comprehensive 2 or 3 nil win.
I can really see Gordon & Hall striking up a great partnership down that left side this season.
Sharpy17(Quote)
The more I think about this Guehi pursuit, the less convinced I am about it.
I think he’s a decent player, but how good he actually is is being inflated I think.
They say never buy a player off the back of a good Euros or WC – but that seems to be what we are doing with Guehi.
Yes he was a stand out player for England – but that’s because England were awful!! – was he that good or were the rest that bad??.
Ultimately I don’t think he’s a £60m player – not when you look at the price of some of the other CBs available this window.
This is absolutely the most Palace will be offered for Guehi – especially with his contract running down. If they don’t want to cash in now, that’s they prerogative – it doesn’t mean we get our pants pulled down.
Move on and get a deal that works for us, coz any deal over £60m is one that favours Palace more than us imo.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Interesting Joe Gomez hasn’t been added as part of Liverpool squad today as he looks for a move.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Right lads, lets get off to a flyer please.
HWTL
kimtoon(Quote)
Schar off red card
kimtoon(Quote)
Schar is an idiot but Diaz is a **** there.
kimtoon(Quote)
Fkin clown . We all know what’s going to happen including schar
Jonesy(Quote)
Fuming … absolutely ******* fuming. What a cheat that Diaz is. And the ref is shocking. Needed to give the free kick long before that kicked off.
Gilly Toon(Quote)
Some things never change 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
Gilly Toon(Quote)
Joelintonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
kimtoon(Quote)
Get iiiiiiinnnnnnnn big Joe
Gilly Toon(Quote)
Dreadful referee absolutely horrendous. We are right up against it now. Bother in the tunnel too. Our team need to keep their heads now.
Gilly Toon(Quote)
Well that first half was abit like the close season .. messy a bit of chaos and nufc not gelling.
Joelinton took his goal well.
Southampton seem to have grasped PL level 5h1thousing so nufc need to settle down and dish out retribution cold
Jonesy(Quote)
Southampton always a bogey team
kimtoon(Quote)
Diaz misses lol
Karma
kimtoon(Quote)
Very sweet
Jonesy(Quote)
*** this ref man😠
kimtoon(Quote)
Toffees having a bad day
kimtoon(Quote)
Gordon going off and Hall too, Barnes and Kelly come on
kimtoon(Quote)
Pope injured !
kimtoon(Quote)
Pope ok, more added time though cause of that .
kimtoon(Quote)
Watch this ref play 15 mins et
kimtoon(Quote)
5 mins et
kimtoon(Quote)
Wow, that’s a hard fought win, what with playing the ref too.
Big Joe motm
kimtoon(Quote)
Well early season prediction – we won’t play worse than that this season 😖.
23% possession & 1 shot on target 🤢. But 3 points in the bag – take it & run!!.
One thing I have to say though – having had ALL summer, the fact we are talking about Burn, Schar and Krafth as CBs is disgraceful really!!.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Clean Sheet Sharpy. They did their Job.
PremAndUp(Quote)
Harsh given nufc were down to 10 for 60% of the game.
Deliberate ploy to yield possession 2nd half imo.
Haven’t seen the stats but not sure pope had that much that was difficult.
Oh and I’m really pleased they went nowhere near that tw4t Diaz .. what an 4r5e and not very good either.
Jonesy(Quote)
Tough game against 12 men. We did well considering. Joelinton absolutely MotM… outstanding today. Shout out to Hall too who cleared a certain goal off the line.
Gilly Toon(Quote)
Decent enough but they’ll face sterner tests so room for improvement
Felt they went deep a little early but they were compact and organised and what stood out was their spirit which we all know runs deep.
Howe made sensibly timed and positional subs which was good to see altho I thought we may have seen osula.
Felt a little sad for Murphy who looked promising early on. Thought Barnes looked a bit rusty and Kelly assured. No doubt longstaff will be slaughtered but I thought he supported livramento well as did guimaraes
Job done. HTL
Jonesy(Quote)
Good result considering the circumstances.
kimtoon(Quote)
So I mentioned livramento, longstaff and guimaraes working well earlier. I thought hall and then subsequently Kelly looked a bit isolated on the left . It maybe nufc shaped that way to defend a greater perceived threat.
I thought hall looked exposed but Kelly looked assured. Cherries fans always talk up Kelly as a LB not LCB and given today I can see why
Jonesy(Quote)
Diaz was pathetic in his reaction – but Schar knows better than that!! It was stupid on his part.
There were positives from today but I can’t be happy with how we were today.
Prem – credit to them for keeping the clean sheet & you’re right, they did their job today. But our quality in the defensive department should be so much better than what we have imo.
We scored a record number of goals last season – but leaked far too many – defence is where our focus should be imo.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Totally agree Sharpy.
PremAndUp(Quote)
I think amazingly they have managed to get it wrong again in their amendments to the use of VAR!!.
The whole point of VAR was to help & support referees to ensure mistakes were kept to a minimum.
The issue last season was their reviews were taking far too long & it was VAR telling the refs to wait while they reviewed incidents.
This season they have been told not to interfere as much – to only get involved if the refs decision is clear & obviously wrong. So the ref makes a call one way or the other & only the obvious ones get corrected?!
Why though can they not settle on the ref telling VAR his thoughts & asking that they review it to see if he’s wrong?!.
For example – I don’t have the angle to see how much contact Schar made there – can it be reviewed for a red card decision.
If either they or he reviewed it, I’m not sure it would have been red.
There’s a penalty just happened in the WH v Villa game as well – which if reviewed I’m not sure that pen is given either.
I honestly can’t believe how difficult they make the application of VAR like – ridiculous with the amount of money thrown at it 🙄
Sharpy17(Quote)
I don’t mean to call you out but I can’t help but comment that this kind of analysis is head scratchingly confusing.
On the one hand you’re judging some of the players are not at the level needed to take the club where we all want it to be. Completely agree altho who those players are may be a difference of opinion.
But then you judge players against what we all want them to be not what they are and that feels a bit unfair on the players out there.
You compound the whole thing by suggesting the club go after players who are lesser than the players they’re trying to bring in
Jonesy(Quote)
Jonesy – happy to debate it with you mate, you you’re going to have to be more specific & expand on your points so I can explain my stance on whatever confuses you.
Sharpy17(Quote)