Newcastle United have turned solidity into a kind of art form, albeit one which features slowly drying paint. Difficult to play against and not wholly fun to look at, they have recorded four clean sheets in their first five Premier League matches and drawn three consecutive away games 0-0. The undercoat is there, but frivolity is lacking.
On the basis that Bournemouth are more than handy and that any away point is a good point — particularly in the aftermath of an emotional, leg-draining midweek skirmish with Barcelona — Sunday’s draw gets marked down as a decent result for Eddie Howe and his team. A league win against the club Howe rebuilt before coming to Tyneside remains elusive, but there was discipline, rigorous defending and minimal drama.
On the other hand, there was not much of anything else; no goals, an xG figure of 0.14 — their second-lowest for a league match in almost four years under Howe — only four shots and one on target, which is basic evidence that Newcastle are yet to click this season. After the Alexander Isak saga, it remains a welcome novelty to see them playing with a striker, but acclimatising to new signing Nick Woltemade has barely begun.
In terms of balance and brilliance, Newcastle are still scratching around. To some extent, this should be expected; a bitter memory he may be, but Isak is a world-class talent who scored 20-plus league goals in successive seasons. Replacing his output verges on the impossible, especially given Woltemade’s different physical profile and skill set.
With Newcastle fielding a five-man defence and limited as an offensive force, the Germany international craved service and involvement at the Vitality Stadium. There was a lusty penalty appeal, ignored by referee Rob Jones, when Woltemade was tugged back by Bafode Diakite. “He was pulled and it stopped him from getting a shot off, so for me, it was a clear penalty,” Howe said.
Integrating the 23-year-old will require patience; Howe brought up Isak’s name without being prompted. “We’re naturally going to be a different team this year without Alex,” he said. “We’ll be attacking with a different emphasis. Nick played really well — he was very effective with his footwork and his link play — but we just need to get used to him and his style. We’re evolving into a different team and hopefully a better team.”
They are a fair distance away from that. “It’s not good,” Howe said about Newcastle’s failure to trouble Bournemouth beyond an early shot from Jacob Murphy. “You want to create chances and clear-cut chances. It didn’t feel like that in our performance.”
Nick Woltemade was often isolated against Bournemouth (Harry Murphy/Getty Images)
With four competitions to compete in this season and a thick flurry of fixtures to navigate, there is something to be said for stodginess, however. It could definitely be worse, and it has been. Newcastle did not threaten on Sunday but nor were they threatened, notwithstanding Howe switching out the majority of his side from the Barcelona game. If it does not equate to momentum, then there is a foundation to build upon.
Small mercies, but this is not always the way of things at Bournemouth, which represents another inching improvement. Two years ago, the Vitality was poorly named. Newcastle arrived exhausted and ailing, stretched beyond their limits. A return to the Champions League after two decades away had become a beautiful grind and Howe’s squad was not deep or robust enough to cope.
Four days on from a chastening 2-0 defeat at Borussia Dortmund, the trip to Bournemouth proved fractious and ratty. Eleven senior players were missing through injury or suspension — 17-year-old Lewis Miley started his first Premier League fixture in midfield — and when Howe described his team as “unrecognisable” after another sapping 2-0 loss, it had a dual meaning.
At the final whistle that day, Kieran Trippier remonstrated with a lone supporter who had accused players of shirking. Newcastle had sprinted way ahead of schedule following the 2021 takeover, but Howe’s squad was a straitjacket and the club were not ready. Over the course of six European matches that season, Howe made an average of 1.8 changes to his side leading into league games.
Things are different now. After all those years of yearning, Newcastle have been transformed into trophy winners and Howe’s resources are much deeper, with quality options in most positions aside from up front, where summer signing Yoane Wissa’s absence with a knee problem continues to bite. For the most part, the challenge is creative rotation rather than grim endurance. They must also now transition into a post-Isak reality.
Dan Burn takes stock after the final whistle (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
The south coast offered a sea change. Or rather, seven changes from the side that lost 2-1 to Barcelona. Out went Trippier, Fabian Schar, Anthony Gordon, Bruno Guimaraes, Joelinton, Anthony Elanga and Harvey Barnes, in came Miley, Murphy, Woltemade, Lewis Hall, Sven Botman, Malick Thiaw and Joe Willock.
As an academic exercise, this was uncharted territory. Psychologically, the test was for a re-sculpted Newcastle to resemble themselves both in energy and quality. Within the coaching staff, Bournemouth was presented as a physical examination, with Andoni Iraola’s dynamic side in good form and well-equipped at exploiting frailty.
On this score, Newcastle got through it. They have still not won a league match that Guimaraes has not started since he joined the club in January 2022, which is thankfully a rarity — “Bruno can’t play every minute of every game, for his own benefit,” Howe said about his captain — but nor did wholesale rotation bring on dizziness. The effect was not pretty, but it did the job. They ground on and went home with their point.
That is not to be sniffed at, even if the eyes occasionally longed to look away.
“I’ve got to use the squad, especially in a week like this where we’ve had the mental high of the Barcelona game,” Howe said. “When we were in this position two years ago, we found it very difficult to recover physically and mentally for the next challenge. It (Sunday) was a good opportunity to bring fresh players into the team, players with points to prove.”
It may not have felt like it, but this was a luxury. “If you look at our schedule, it’s relentless,” Howe said. “It’s going to be the squad that will carry us to success, not 11 players.”
This will take some getting used to, for everybody, but so, too, will seeing a Newcastle team reinvent themselves after a blissful period of elegant, deadly grace in forward positions.
This is new to them, for better and for worse.
(Top photo: Dan Mullan/Getty Images)