Confidence is a massive thing in football. Newcastle United have earned the right to have loads while Manchester United only get more and more dismal.
Confidence is massive, isn’t it? Look at these two sides. They finished level on points last year, for god’s sake.
The mental side of the game is far from the only difference between these two clubs right now, but the contrast could not have been more stark on the day.
The well wishes for Eddie Howe gave a necessarily sombre air to the pre-match build-up, but his boys did him proud in his absence as they gradually pummelled and pounded Manchester United into deeper and deeper despair, every goal cheaper than the last from the visitors’ perspective.
For Newcastle, meanwhile, the confidence only soared into an outright swagger.
Seemingly having realised his Manchester United side are only capable of fleeting moments of creativity on the counter amid a morass of boring dirge, Ruben Amorim has gone out of his way to try and make the opposition as boring as possible as well. From hot, sexy young thing to latter day Jose Mourinho in just five months. It’s difficult to blame him, though; they genuinely don’t seem capable of anything more.
Whatever our criticisms of Newcastle have been at various points this season, though, boring has never been among them. They can be scintillating at times, especially when given the opportunity to exploit a flowing counter-attack from deep. In the first half of the season we felt that made them far too one-dimensional. There is far more to them than that now, in every department. Even that previously leaky defence no longer drips goals nearly as often.
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Their visitors did not give them many of those opportunities to hit them on the break, but it’s credit to Newcastle that their ability to find another way came as no surprise. Counter-attacking not an option? Fine, we’ll just counter-press high up the pitch instead.
Just as Amorim has dropped his side back and back, Newcastle have pushed forward and forward. One approach has paid off. The other has only led to yet more calamity.
All Newcastle’s first three goals came out of them winning the ball in the Red Devils’ half and ruthlessly making the most of it with speed, skill, and a bit of a helping hand from Manchester United failing to get the basics right. The fourth was just more Manchester United goalkeeping absurdity.
After being gifted possession on the edge of the opposition third by Manuel Ugarte – who then proceeded to wander aimlessly around a five-yard patch of grass in response – Alexander Isak’s skill, vision and execution of the final pass to find Sandro Tonali’s run into the box for the opener was sublime, and the Italian’s low volleyed finish was perfect.
Alejandro Garnacho equalised before the break, getting up the wing and side-footing past Nick Pope – and that was to be the last action the visiting fans had to celebrate.
Tino Livramento got past his man to put a ball across the face of goal, Jacob Murphy sent it back the other way for Harvey Barnes to tap in. 2-1. Barnes muscled a panicky Leny Yoro into slipping to the floor, raced into the middle and smashed into the top corner. 3-1. Altay Bayindir hilariously curled the ball about 25 yards onto Joelinton’s head, it fell at Bruno Guimaraes’ feet. 4-1. Easy, easy, easy.
And it was easy, but it took Newcastle a lot of hard work, a bit of patience and a huge amount of belief in what they were doing to get to that point. Against an opposition who show no inclination for hard work, no ideas and absolutely zero clue of what they’re meant to be doing, the outcome was inevitable.
Newcastle are good now. Really really good. Manchester United are bad now. Really really bad. 4-1 was exactly the kind of result we expected. For them to be in such markedly different places from where they were a year ago is as much credit and indictment as you need.
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