On a cacophonous night of booming noise and rampant symbolism, Newcastle United lost.
They lost the match, they lost Anthony Gordon to a three-match suspension, and they lost three big players to injury, but if there are shades of defeat, this headbanger of a bittersweet game was proof. It could not all be darkness, not when Eddie Howe’s team played with such vigour and defiance, when they lost but played like winners.
“How do you sum up an evening like this? So many things happened, it was complete chaos, and the fans made it an unbelievable atmosphere,” Arne Slot, Liverpool’s manager, conceded. “We had to stay so strong for so long. We were the lucky ones to get it over the line.”
As you always knew they would, Newcastle supporters rallied to the flag. As you always suspected, Howe’s players found a way of facing down adversity, although this was extreme, even by their standards. At 2-0 and one man down — a lopsided reflection of a game they had bullied — they pushed and pushed and pushed themselves more. At 2-2, they were pressing for a winner. At 2-3 in the 100th minute, there could only be devastation.
Newcastle fans make their point before kick-off (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
And to think that Alexander Isak chose to swerve it. It is tempting to say that the Sweden international did not know what he was missing, except that it was a conscious and deliberate act. As one striker sat it out, his stand-in was thrown out and there were Newcastle, down and out, conceding another just 19 seconds after the restart to Hugo Ekitike, one (of several) who got away this summer. With 10 men on the pitch, they were brutal and brilliant.
And then along came Will Osula, the only forward left in the building, to somehow bend this extraordinary story, this ridiculous, wearing, summer is his direction with an 88th-minute equaliser. Until, until, until… Rio Ngumoha’s goal, scored way past the 16-year-old’s bedtime, was a volume-vacuum.
Drawing conclusions from the bedlam feels like a lifetime project. Picking up the pieces will be Sisyphean. It leaves Newcastle with one point from their opening two league games, which feels like a meagre reward for the attitude and quality they have shown against first Aston Villa and then Liverpool when the whole world has been watching on, looking for signs of fracture.
It leaves them unbowed but imperfectly formed and partially broken, with work to do while the transfer window remains open. Perhaps more so, now. Already needing reinforcements in attack, whether or not Isak stays, Gordon will miss the next three games. Surely, in those circumstances, the prospect of selling Isak to Liverpool recedes even further? Surely it becomes even less palatable?
“Yes, of course,” Howe said. “If you do the maths, we’re running out of options in that position.”
Once again, the head coach was battered with questions about Isak. The rare presence of Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the club’s chairman, on Tyneside for the first time since February felt significant in such heightened circumstances; he and Jamie Reuben, the minority owner, stood in front of the dugouts at the end, applauding and shaking hands with exhausted players. They have the power to get things done. They have the power to ensure Isak remains.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan was at St James’ Park (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
“He’s the owner, the most important person in terms of directing which decisions we make,” Howe said of Al-Rumayyan.
Options are becoming scarce elsewhere, too. Fabian Schar left the pitch with a concussion, Sandro Tonali with a damaged shoulder, and Joelinton with a groin injury.
“They’re genuine injuries,” Howe said. “That would be a huge blow to us.”
Amid all of that, Newcastle found a way to function. For large stretches of the match, they were exceptional, setting the tone and then responding to misfortune, from Ryan Gravenberch’s momentum-confounding opener, to Gordon’s lunge on Virgil van Dijk and Ekitike’s cruel timing. The punches came and they rolled with them.
“We’ve given two great performances and we’ve shown our togetherness and unity,” Howe said. “We’ve shown our fighting spirit. We’ve shown we have put the distractions around us away — you’d just like a bigger return to show the rest of the world. Sometimes football doesn’t give you that.”
Slot was gushing in his praise of Newcastle. Or at least in how difficult it is to play against Howe’s relentlessly physical and athletic side.
“It is impossible for us to control this game,” Slot said. “They are such a good team, with their playing style and how hard they made it for us.”
What most impressed Slot and most unsettled his side was how direct Newcastle were. Their passing accuracy was only 68 per cent, but they attempted 53 ‘long balls’, 15 of which found their intended target.
Bruno Guimaraes was colossal for Newcastle (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Howe identified Newcastle’s size advantage and attempted to exploit it at every opportunity, especially once they had one player fewer. There were diagonals played forward, set pieces directed into the area, and they unveiled a new weapon in their armoury. Tino Livramento’s long throws had not been seen previously, but freshly appointed set-piece coach Martin Mark is looking to eke more out of every dead-ball situation.
Beyond that aggression and aerial threat, Newcastle also displayed far less tangible qualities. Bruno Guimaraes, the captain, showed real desire to get to Livramento’s cross ahead of Milos Kerkez and head in Newcastle’s first, while Osula’s selflessness and willingness to continue his run into the area allowed him to capitalise on a ricochet and equalise.
“When you go down to 10 men, it’s just all about your mentality, your togetherness as a team,” Livramento said. “We have that in abundance. We were by far the better team and you saw what we can do.”
What Newcastle did was lose, but not in the way that losers do. Howe summed it up. “This isn’t going to be a simple season for us and we’re already being challenged in ways we maybe didn’t expect,” he said. “We have to rise to those challenges.”
(Top photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images)