Newcastle’s run-in dissected: The three games that could lead to the Champions League

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With the title sorted and celebrated and the relegation battle long since fought and lost, the only thing still to be determined in this season’s Premier League is which team will be playing in which European competition next time around. The race for the Champions League is entering the home straight and, with three games still to play, hyperbole has nowhere else to turn. Newcastle United are right in the thick of it.

After Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Brighton & Hove Albion, Eddie Howe’s team stand fourth, one point behind Manchester City and ahead of Chelsea — who they play at St James’ Park this weekend — by virtue of goals scored. Two points behind them are Nottingham Forest, who are one clear of seventh-placed Aston Villa. With the top five guaranteed a place in the Champions League — Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur would also qualify by winning the Europa League — it is all to play for. Arsenal are not safe in second.

Some members of Howe’s backroom staff are privately referring to Chelsea on Sunday as Newcastle’s biggest league fixture of the season and it is not difficult to see why. Managers and coaches naturally fixate on the game immediately in front of them, but this one has the potential to put daylight between them and their closest rivals as they jostle for a place in Europe’s leading club competition. Getting back there is a game-changer; vital for economic reasons as well as sporting prestige. It has the feel of a high noon shootout.

Yet, on its own, Chelsea will determine nothing, even if it serves as an important tone-setter. Howe has felt “for months” that this competition within a competition will “go to the wire, it’s going to go to the end because you’ve got top-quality teams all fighting for a massive prize. We just hope to be in there.”

After Chelsea, it is Arsenal away and Everton at home for Newcastle; here, The Athletic takes a closer look at the club’s run-in.

Chelsea (home)

The heightened circumstances give this a climactic feel, at which point it is worth recalling just what is at stake for Newcastle. The Champions League brings money and eyeballs. It is the stage players want to grace, whether they are players you already have and want to keep (happy) or the players you hope to sign. It makes relationships with existing sponsors more lucrative and makes others more interested in cutting deals.

All of those things are pivotal for Newcastle in an era of financial fair play, when every pound generated makes a difference. They want to retain Alexander Isak, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes and, having already demonstrated this season they are a club capable of winning silverware, securing Champions League football for the second time in three years would suggest it is becoming their natural home. It shows that big ambitions can be fulfilled on Tyneside.

Newcastle have arrived at this moment in a position of strength. Unlike Chelsea, they have already hit their target for this season, qualifying for Europe via their victory over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final, which earned them their first domestic trophy for 70 years. The UEFA Conference League may be the third tier in terms of European football, but there is an argument to be made that anything beyond that represents a bonus. They feel liberated, winning five of their seven league fixtures since Wembley, losing once.

Ironically, Chelsea’s participation in this season’s Conference League may also serve to assist Newcastle, given that Enzo Maresca and his squad must navigate the second leg of their semi-final against Djurgarden on Thursday. They lead 4-1, which means any inconvenience may be more implied than actual, but it will certainly impact their training, preparation, attention and recovery. Newcastle have a free week and a single focus.

This notion of Chelsea being the “biggest” game of the season also requires some context. In the League Cup, Newcastle have already beaten Chelsea, as well as Arsenal (twice) and Liverpool at Wembley, showing steely nerves on huge occasions. In the Premier League, they have done the double over Manchester United and Spurs and beaten Arsenal at home. There are some exceptions, but by and large, they have saved the best of themselves for when it matters.

Newcastle beat Chelsea 2-0 in their Carabao Cup meeting (George Wood/Getty Images)

They have also found a way to respond when necessary. There has been no league game more important than Leicester City at St James’ on December 14, which came hard on the heels of a week of reset following their dreadful 4-2 loss at Brentford. At that stage, they were 12th in the table and, externally, Howe’s leadership was being questioned. There was introspection, individual meetings with players and hard truths. Their 4-0 win over Leicester was the first of nine consecutive victories in all competitions.

Since then, Newcastle’s form has been exemplary. Over more than half a league season, no team can better their total of 14 wins or nine clean sheets. Only Liverpool have scored more goals. This is a stark contrast to the reverse fixture against Chelsea in late October, a 2-1 loss when Isak’s tap-in was their first goal from open play in more than seven hours. After that match, The Athletic reported: “Right now, in every way, Newcastle are a mid-table side.”

Their next game brought quickfire redemption and a 2-0 win over Chelsea that took Newcastle into their third successive League Cup quarter-final. After five league matches without a win and with confidence trembling, they needed it; Howe called it “what we’ve been searching for”. They were not in great form, but they ceded the ball, pressed high and pushed their opponents towards error. “We needed a performance and a result,” Howe said.

For very different reasons, that one felt pretty big, too.

Arsenal (away)

A quirk of the fixture list; now, as back then, Arsenal follow Chelsea for Newcastle. After the fillip of that Carabao Cup win, Newcastle beat Mikel Arteta’s side 1-0, the first of three victories over them this season, with five goals scored and none conceded. In the initial instalment, Howe’s team played hard and fast and defended like warriors, mustering only 36 per cent possession but restricting Arsenal to a single shot on target.

After that match at St James’, Arteta said repeatedly that Newcastle “are really good at what they do”, which was a mealy reference to their physicality and how “they dragged us into that too often”. More bluntly, what Newcastle have become good at is no longer losing to Arsenal; across all competitions, Arsenal have won just two of their past eight meetings. Prior to that, Arsenal had won eight in a row and 18 of their previous 19.

This sea change has coincided with a change of status and attitude and, post takeover, Newcastle have found a way to irritate the life out of Arsenal. In May 2022, Arteta’s fury after a 2-0 away defeat which cost them a Champions League place was captured by the Amazon documentary All or Nothing. “It is f***ing embarrassing to come here the way we have done it,” he told his players. A year later, before a 2-0 victory, Arteta played the scene back to them.

In between those matches, Newcastle eked out a goalless draw at the Emirates in January 2023, the first points Arsenal had dropped at home that season. This, too, was costly; what might have been a 10-point lead over Manchester City at the top of the table was reduced to eight. Howe again made the game attritional, with Newcastle’s defence recording a sixth consecutive clean sheet in all competitions, a club record.

Nine players were booked in that game, including Jamaal Lascelles, a non-playing substitute, for disrupting an Arsenal throw-in. Afterwards, Arteta spoke about “two scandalous penalties that weren’t given” and said of Newcastle, they had “never played like this”. Howe responded: “We’re not here to be popular,” which has become a kind of unofficial club motto. The days of losing and being patronised afterwards — “great club, great fans” — were over.

If Arteta’s anger was molten that night, it was trivial compared to November that year when Newcastle’s 1-0 home win condemned Arsenal to their first league defeat of the season. Anthony Gordon’s goal survived three separate VAR checks over whether the ball had gone out of play, for a possible foul and for offside. “It’s embarrassing. A disgrace. That’s what it is — a disgrace,” said Arteta. The following February, Arsenal claimed some revenge with a 4-1 win.

Arsenal were furious about Gordon’s goal in November 2023 (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

Since then, it has been one-way traffic and Newcastle’s pair of victories over Arsenal in the two-legged League Cup semi-final demonstrated a professionalism and maturity which have rarely been associated with such an emotional club. In both games, they were clinical and effective, taking their chances and allowing no room for angst. After the first leg, Arteta had expressed concern about the ball being used in the competition. After the second, excuses evaporated.

Newcastle were now a competent, settled, confident team, playing with Tonali in a deeper midfield role and this is what they remain, bolstered by a trophy win and with an extended run of good form behind them.

For all these reasons, they will not fear Arsenal who, by the time this game takes place, will know whether they have a Champions League final ahead of them, with the distraction, momentum or disappointment that goes with it. At present, it feels more like distraction; in the Premier League, Arsenal are wading through treacle, beating Ipswich Town but losing to Bournemouth and drawing with Everton, Brentford and Crystal Palace over their past five matches.

No fear, but a healthy dose of respect and wariness. Given all of the above, home fans at the Emirates would revel in a spot of role-reversal and for Arteta’s team to finally be cast as the gleeful spoilers.

Everton (home)

On the face of it, this is an ideal game to end the season with. Newcastle are at home, facing a team who are currently 14th in the table with nothing to play for and who have won only one of their past 10 league matches. If the Champions League is still up for grabs, then a raucous St James’ will surely make mincemeat of a mediocre Everton side who have scored only 12 goals away from home, the lowest total in the Premier League.

Whoa there! Everton may not score a lot of away goals, but they do not concede many, either; in fact, only Arsenal (14) have let in fewer than their 20 goals, which suggests they are far from flimsy opponents. They have only lost seven away matches, one more than Newcastle, one less than Villa, and a record which only Brighton & Hove Albion, Bournemouth and Palace can better outside the Premier League’s top six.

Throw in the fact that of those 10 league matches, six have been draws and perhaps Everton are not quite dream final-day opponents after all. Since David Moyes was reappointed manager on January 11, when they were one point clear of the relegation places, they have lost only four league matches: to Villa, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea. In that period, they have also beaten Forest at the City Ground.

Newcastle could not break through in a goalless draw at Goodison Park earlier this season (Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

It is this kind of fixture that Newcastle have sporadically laboured in this season. Howe’s side have lost four league matches at home, to Brighton, West Ham United, Bournemouth and Fulham, who sit between eighth and 17th in the table. Brighton, Bournemouth and Fulham are smart, smaller clubs who bat above their average, while West Ham was a game that Newcastle fully expected to win and simply didn’t turn up for. Warning signs are flashing.

Yet this was back when Howe was regularly bemoaning Newcastle’s inconsistency of attitude, something else they appear to have got out of their system. Over the past five weeks, they have beaten Brentford at home and then swatted aside Manchester United, Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town. They have won five home league games in a row, conceding five goals in the process but scoring 18. Making life difficult for them has become increasingly difficult.

Newcastle have become specialists in rewriting their own history. A trophy is the big one, of course, but never before as a Premier League club have they won as many as 20 of 26 games in all competitions, their tally before that Brighton draw. Never before had they won at Old Trafford, Spurs and Arsenal in the same season. Only once before across their entire existence had they won nine consecutive games, as they did from mid-December onwards.

To be this good for so long, to win a cup, to be here in May still fighting for something positive; collect all those things together and it represents uncharted territory, but it also feels like where they belong. Big and biggest games are becoming the norm.

Football is unpredictable and anything could happen over the next three games, but the Champions League is in Newcastle’s hands and those hands have finally lifted silverware. Compared to that, this just feels like business.

(Top photo: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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