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The gloom of the London Stadium was soon forgotten. Newcastle may have been abject on Sunday, but in a run of six wins in eight games, one aberration is perhaps permissible.
This was a third successive Champions League success, all without conceding, and Eddie Howe’s side can now look forward to the playoff round at least, perhaps even a top‑eight place and automatic passage to the last 16. Quite apart from anything else, they are bigger than most opponents they face in Europe and that, ultimately, was what underlay their victory against Athletic.
This Newcastle are a team with an extremely high ceiling and a very low floor. They are capable of winning five out of six as they did between hammering Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium and outplaying Tottenham in the Carabao Cup. But they are also capable of performances such as the abject display they produced in losing 3-1 against West Ham on Sunday. They are both the amiable doctor and the vicious criminal, both ferociously energetic winners and lethargic disappointments, both Jekyll and Hyde.
Part of the issue, perhaps, is that Newcastle are a side whose approach is so rooted in energy that the slightest drop in tempo can cause a huge drop-off in performance. This was their sixth game in 18 days and Nick Woltemade, one of those withdrawn at half-time on Sunday, has started all six. He had a far happier night, holding the ball up well and going close with a stretching header of the sort of which only somebody with his build is really capable. But there have also been accusations that certain players are picking and choosing their games, capable of raising themselves to pummel Benfica in the Champions League but less interested in a chilly afternoon at the London Stadium.
One of the subplots of the Champions League this season has been seeing how the Premier League’s obsession with set plays translates in Europe against teams who don’t spend half their lives working on them. The answer, perhaps not surprisingly, is extremely well.
After Liverpool had tormented Real Madrid with corners and free‑kicks on Tuesday, Newcastle did the same to Athletic. By recent standards there was nothing especially complex about the goal that gave them an 11th-minute lead, no blocking runs, no decoys, just Dan Burn somehow looping unseen round the back of the defence to steer Kieran Trippier’s free-kick inside the far post with a glorious header.
Newcastle, though, were not comfortable in their lead. Loose play from Anthony Gordon, who is one of those who has begun to attract criticism, led to Unai Gómez breaking into the right side of the box, denied at the near post by the outstretched foot of Nick Pope, and Adama Boiro then pinged a snapshot off the post. Gordon, who never looked himself, after hobbling for several minutes with what appeared to be an upper thigh problem, was eventually forced off minutes before half-time.
Yet there was always a sense that those chances came against the run of play and that Newcastle’s superior physicality would prevail in the end. As it turned out they were helped out, again, by Athletic’s reluctance to mark the biggest bloke in the box, Joelinton left untended six yards out to nod in a Harvey Barnes cross four minutes into the second half.
When Burn was gifted a free header from a corner five minutes later, it really began to seem that the entire back four had fallen foul of some weird affliction that left them unable to perceive anybody over 6ft 2in. Who knows what they thought when Burn was withdrawn for Lewis Hall – that Newcastle had finally started playing with a full team, perhaps.
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Burn’s departure was part of a treble substitution. Given the pressure of the calendar that was an understandable move from Howe, and Newcastle were never anything other than comfortable, but the changes did end the surge with which Newcastle had begun the second half.
Athletic threatened only with a couple of long range efforts, and one Nico Serrano effort that Nick Pope pushed wide, and for most of the last half hour the game was largely just an exercise in running down the clock.
Newcastle would be happy enough with that. Given the fatigue they demonstrated on Sunday, a convincing victory in which they didn’t need to overexert themselves. Brentford away at the weekend will be a very different test – and then comes the relief of the international break and a chance for at least some of the squad to recuperate.
