NASTY NEWCASTLE ARE MASTERS OF DARK ARTS
No more Mr Nice Guy as Howe uses every wily tactic to gatecrash top four
DURING his 15 months out of the game, Eddie Howe spent time in Madrid. He did not return enthused by the artwork of Picasso, Dali and Goya. It was the dark arts of Diego Simeone he had noted.
For a nice guy who could not organise a backline — as was often levelled at him at Bournemouth — the Newcastle boss has built a pugnacious band of brothers whose defence is seldom breached. Nick Pope has kept 10 straight clean sheets.
There is, however, far more to that resistance than ‘the world’s best goalkeeper’, as team-mate Bruno Guimaraes labelled Pope this week.
It is also the wily, underhand practices made infamous by Simeone and Atletico Madrid that have turned Newcastle into the country’s most obdurate opponents.
They are clipping the wings of the established order and ruffling feathers while they are at it. As Howe himself said: ‘We’re not here to be popular, we are here to compete.’
If that was the manager allowing himself a rare bark, his players have backed it up with their bite. Joelinton has assumed the role of chief enforcer, and no player has more than his seven Premier League yellow cards this season. Captain Jamaal Lascelles has been booked twice — both for interference while warming up as a substitute. Talk about a 12th man.
Newcastle are the only team to take points off league leaders Arsenal at the Emirates this season, and they did so by running down the clock and winding up
Mikel Arteta. They snarled and they smiled, depending on which would provoke the most irritation.
In the hours after Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Southampton, and with a move for Anthony Gordon
gathering pace, travelling fans in the city’s bars debated the merits of signing the Everton forward.
Given he had scrapped with just about every Newcastle player during his side’s 1-0 defeat at St James’ Park in October, many were against the 21-year-old’s arrival.
Others reasoned that was exactly why he would fit in. ‘He’s a s***house, but he can be our s***house!’ was the consensus of those in favour.
The example cited was former Newcastle forward Craig Bellamy, a player only ever popular with his own fan base. They loved him on Tyneside.
And how they love the current vintage, too. What Jacob Murphy did in waving goodbye to Southampton defender Duje Caleta-Car following his late red card was, it should be said, a little classless. The Toon Army, by contrast, thought it was class.
Just like they did Callum Wilson scuffing the penalty spot before Aleksandar Mitrovic’s slip and miss for Fulham this month; Joelinton listening in to Marco Silva’s touchline instruction; the tactical injuries to eat up seconds or buy Howe a timeout.
And, with increasing popularity, the antics of Jason Tindall, the handsome assistant who turns ugly when needed. One of the coaches even launched a bottle of water at Jurgen Klopp.
An Everton-supporting colleague moaned that Newcastle had ‘kicked them off the park’ during their loss at St James’. Kicked off? Played off? Howe’s team are doing whatever is necessary to win a football match. Kevin Keegan’s great side of the mid-Nineties, of course, were affectionately known as ‘The Entertainers’.
Everyone liked them. What did they win? Nothing.
Howe’s quote about not being liked has since been woven into a giant flag and unfurled on the Leazes End.
The manager, meanwhile, continues to stitch nastiness into the fabric of his team.
Yes, they are now being cast as the Premier League’s meanies. But, for Howe, it is a means to an end. The next time he visits Madrid, it will probably be to play in the Champions League.