The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
United hoping to come back with all guns blazing
ONE win in normal time in five games. Out of the domestic cups. Hamstrung by financial rules. Sound familiar? Well, this was the very situation Arsenal found themselves in back in January when the Gunners, like Newcastle United, jetted off to Dubai.
Captain Martin Odegaard admitted his ‘tired’ side needed to ‘restart’ and they certainly did so in the Middle East.
Free-scoring Arsenal have since won eight Premier League games in a row and Mikel Arteta’s team find themselves in top spot and in the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time since 2010. No wonder Declan Rice called it a ‘hell of a comeback.’
It would be ridiculous to suggest that Arsenal’s turnaround is down to a week in the sun, but speak to anyone around the club about the league leaders’ upturn in form and they will inevitably reference that trip.
Not only did the time away give players and staff a rare extended period on the training pitches to work on things in a different climate and environment - the break also helped the group to grow closer off the pitch.
“It was a phenomenal camp in every sense,” Arteta said even before his side’s first game back. “We worked really hard on things that we wanted to do and we recharged our batteries.
“The context and the change in environment in beautiful weather helped and the togetherness and the moments that we shared together were great. We feel fully recharged.”
Howe may not be able to call upon his internationals like Arteta was, and a number of key players remain sidelined, but you can see why the Newcastle boss feels time away from prying eyes will be ‘good for us.’
After all, it was just a few months ago that Dan Burn admitted that he felt like he had played a ‘full season mentally.’ The defender was not the only one.
That is why the players will have some time away from the grass this week, before they are put through their paces on it, and these trips have tended to bring an already tight-knit group even closer together as captain Jamaal Lascelles previously explained.
“When you train with each other every single day in the same environment, you don’t ask each other questions,” he told NUFC TV.
“You just see one side to people whereas in a place like this, there are so many experiences and things to do and it brings out a different side of people. It’s huge and big for team chemistry.”
There is already a huge bank of evidence to support those words after Howe had the owners’ backing to take his side to Dubai at this crucial stage of the campaign when such far-flung trips were pretty much unheard of in the Ashley era.
Following Newcastle’s most recent visit, for instance, a year ago, the black-and-whites won six of their next seven games on their way to breaking into the top four. Newcastle may have been hammered 5-1 by Spurs after coming home in 2022, but Howe’s team did bounce back to win four in a row and finished the season strongly.
Newcastle need a similar outcome to ensure this campaign does not just fizzle out following last week’s FA Cup quarter-final defeat against Manchester City. There is still European football up for grabs and just four points currently separate West Ham, in seventh, and the Magpies in 10th.
Newcastle have a game in hand and also welcome the Hammers to St James’ Park in their first game back after the break. How they need to win it to breathe new life into this season.