TF Match Report - Newcastle United 4-1 Manchester United, 13 April 2025

SAM DALLING (@samdalling.bsky.social) with the report from a very, very pleasurable Sunday afternoon in NE1...

Hands up who if you were readying a frustrated yelp in Harvey Barnes’ direction? Go on, it’s ok, you’re in a safe space now. No judgment on these pages. If Alex Isak tucking in down the left looked the better option, that’s because Alex Isak almost always is the better option. Barnes nicking the ball from Noussair Mazraoui was enough: pass the baton to the main man.

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Except Barnes is in by far the best space of his near two years at Newcastle. One where he has the confidence, and strength, to surge forward further and give United an advantage that seemed unlikely to be given up. Bang. In off the post. Time to reach for that imaginary bow. Again - Newcastle’s third was Barnes’ second, a post break finish having restored a lead previously taken and then surrendered in the first half.

Take yourselves back to early March and Anthony Gordon’s moment of petulance against Brighton. In real-time, that felt campaign defining. Out of one cup, and missing Gordon for the final of another. On reflection, it was a season shaping dismissal, but the direction of travel is one that few expected. For the first time, Barnes could see a clear horizon on the flank, a chance to prove his worth without casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. Whereas, before, 45 average minutes might mean a few weeks stretching on the sidelines, now there was some security. Five games, three goals, two assists and a winners medal later, the jury is near unanimous. It's not that there was any animosity towards Barnes. But there was a general acceptance that it wasn’t going to work here for him and a (largely fair) view that it was a bit odd to give up such a large slab of a PSR-restricted pie for something we already had.

And now? Barnes is the last of Eddie Howe’s Class of 2024 to come good, proving that slow gratification is possible in modern football. Of the others, Sandro Tonali volleyed United one-up after some class from Isak, while Lewis Hall’s absence has allowed Tino Livramento to accidentally become one of the league’s best left-backs. It was his ball that eventually teed up Barnes’ first, with Jacob Murphy providing the middle touch.
When he has no time for thought to creep in, Murphy is dashing about like prime Ronaldinho. Had a £60m Spanish right-winger arrived last July and posted Murphy’s numbers, phrases like ‘world-class’ would be being chucked around willy-nilly. He is not that, but he is ours and we love him – particularly when barking like a dog to distract Manchester’s brand-new full-back early doors.

If that was ‘lol’, more ‘lol’ still was Ruben Amorim deeming the best way to deflect attention from his hapless keeper was by leaving him at home, only for the replacement to gift the real Bruno goal number four. Less ‘lol’ was Nick Pope smashing two balls out of play when under no pressure in the first 45. Andre Onana anyone?! (Perhaps that is harsh on a day where the job was very much done via an ok first half and a sublime, thoroughly enjoyable second. Pope did, after all, make a couple of decent stops with the game still in the balance.)

Of Howe’s absence, well, naturally his presence was missed. But then again, it wasn’t. And that is how it should be. A genuinely top-drawer leader, one lacking in ego, will tee everything up so that all runs just a smoothly in their absence. The issue is that plenty out there prefer to dance around in the spotlight and make it all about themselves. Eddie? Cut from different cloth.

Look, it would have been disappointing had United not capitalised on Chelsea’s slip by failing to beat a lower-mid-table side at home. They call that doing a Nottingham Forest. Beating Manchester United, though, however far they fall from grace, will never not be disproportionately pleasurable. Only those of Generation Alpha or later have not had the misfortune of needing to blank out their glory, rammed down the throat by the type of football ‘fan’ who religiously buys every shirt every season to make up for the fact they would have no idea they’d arrived at Old Trafford if they tripped over the Sir Matt Busby statute and were helped up by Fred the Red.

But one almost feels a tinge of sympathy for those amongst their away following still left at the end, belting out something that sounded like support for Amorim. Sure, the Chester-Le-Street Reds were doubtless back home well in time to watch Matthew Potts bowl Durham’s final ball of Day Three, but a good chunk of those up in the gods are real football supporters who deserve better than the effortless naffness served up by a bunch of employees who simply do not care. Bruno Fernandes will never be popular amongst anyone other than his own, but at least he gives a fuck.

On to Palace. Was always going to be the tougher test, right?

SAM DALLING - @samdalling.bsky.social

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