TF Match Report - Newcastle United 4-3 Nottingham Forest
Ed Cole takes in a roller coaster afternoon at St James'
Date: 23/2/25 (or 21 days 'til Wembley)
Conditions: Variable
The time between a successful semi final and the final itself has a degree of liminality about it.
Almost like the days between Christmas and New Year, when ‘Wednesday’ is no longer ‘Wednesday’ but ’26 days til Wembley’, and conversations between acquaintances no longer start with, ‘how’s things?’, but rather, ‘have you got your travel down to London sorted yet?’
So it was in the build up to today’s home fixture against Nottingham Forest.
Complicating matters in the eternal wait for our judgment under the arch, is a series of increasingly tricky league games, and having seen his side go belly-up in the last two home matches and turn in an all-time stinker of a performance at the Etihad last week, Eddie Howe was suddenly faced with a European six pointer against the Premier League’s surprise package. Some felt it was must-win to keep our Champions League hopes alive, others felt it was must-win as we need to head to the Carabao Cup final in some sort of good form.
Either way, this felt like a game with repercussions that would stretch long into the future, and a 90 minutes that we might’ve ended up looking back on wistfully for months, or perhaps even years to come.
United started well. Full of energy and desire, they looked to exploit the areas behind both full backs and won a couple of early corners.
The crowd were in fine voice, too, or as least as fine as could be hoped for a 2pm Sunday kick off. All the signs pointed to a team who had been taken ‘back to basics’ as the manager had promised, and were ready to prove a point to their aspirational opponents.
The football was fast, the atmosphere was crackling, the stadium was gleaming in the late February afternoon light.
Then, quite suddenly, and almost completely without warning, Jacob Murphy conspired to kick the ball against his own leg, leaving Callum Hudson-Odoi in with around 700 acres of space. Incidentally, Nick Pope had chosen that same moment to stray to his left, leaving a good two thirds of his net utterly gaping.
Everything stopped, apart from the former Chelsea winger, who took a few leisurely touches, before gently caressing the ball into the corner of the net from 35 years out. Like a simultaneous screeching of brakes and record skipping and train derailing, St James’ was jolted out of a daydream.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
It was at that moment that your match reporter for the day took out his phone, opened his notes app and wrote: ‘NUFC go 1-0 down to NUFC. We are playing against ourselves. We are fighting ourselves. We are fighting our history.’
This dramatic scrawl was inspired by a pre-match conversation in the Irish Centre, where I had told my friend (and ticket benefactor for the day) Alex, that I felt we had little to no chance of winning at Wembley (all of our pre-match chat was about the final, of course) because the weight of history is too much for this group of players.
This team is only successful when they fight with maximum passion and desire - as soon as they play at 80% or less, they get their arses handed to them, and as soon as the emotion gets too much and the stakes get too high, they lose their heads and ability goes with it.
With both factors in mind, I opined to Alex, we would almost certainly fall flat on Wembley Way (again), and what’s more I couldn’t see us picking up more than a fortunate point in the games before then.
At least Forest’s goal brought vindication to this particular pessimist.
This all felt eerily similar. United untied by their own ineptitude. The stage set for a dominant home day, only for the lads to fluff their lines.
Whether it’s the weight of Wembley or expectation or history, we just always seem to find a way to act as our own worst enemy. To defeat ourselves.
This analogy only felt more justified by seeing Elliot Anderson sprinting around St James’ in a Forest shirt, stretching the play and looking for all the world like a true local anti-hero, come to spoil the tune of his home team.
Then, quite suddenly, and almost completely without warning, Newcastle scored four goals. In eleven minutes. (‘Four goals, Jeremy? Four??’)
Whether it was Forest switching off, something clicking in attack, or just a minor glitch in the Matrix, for 660 seconds everything we touched turned to gold. Willock was everywhere, Gordon was incisive. Isak sprang into action. Jacob Murphy scored off his bollock.
Perhaps most aptly, this flurry of brilliance and goals was initiated by the one player on the pitch who looked as though he didn’t carry that same weight as those around him. A lad who looks like he was born with a football at his feet, and who happens to sport Black & White inked skin under his black and white shirt.
If Newcastle United are trying to shake off a lumbering, incessant, clawing history that always seems to defy us at the most crucial moments, then perhaps Lewis Miley is a beacon of a different future.
If you are looking for a sign, a signal, a ray of hope on the horizon - anything to suggest that the times might be changing, then this boy from Stanley might just be it. Half-time came and we were 4-1 up, it could’ve been more.
All the talk at on the concourse was on shades of Spurs. ‘This could be anything!' ‘Bring on Liverpool!’ ‘Bring on Wembley!’
Then, somewhat unfortunately, the second half started. Hello darkness, my old friend. All that can be said about the second 45 is that Newcastle tried, really tried - tried excruciatingly hard, to defeat themselves all over again.
They repeatedly conceded possession, they refused to consider attacking, they tripped and whinged and ran down blind alleys. They were a laughing stock defending set pieces and it was no surprise that’s where the two Forest goals came from - it could, and perhaps should’ve been more.
However, in true NUFC style, as much as they desperately tried to lose the game, they couldn’t quite get it over the line. United went to shoot themselves in the foot - and missed.
Simultaneously ridiculous and sublime and, quite frankly, at times, shite. But they won. I’m still not quite sure how, but they won.
As we left St James’ Park and headed for a post-game debrief pint, Alex turned to me and asked, ‘do you think there’s been any other example of a team beating a top five rival 4-3, and finishing the game feeling like you’ve been thrashed 3-0?’. I laughed. Probably not. But this is who we are, I guess. This who we’ve always been. Mad, infuriating, abysmal, inevitable, inspiring, disastrous, beautiful. United.
Next stop on this road to Wembley/tragical mystery tour/magical history tour… Anfield.
Ed Cole
@edsamuelcole.bsky.social
Yep, that's pretty much what it looked like on the telly too.
If True Faith give out prizes at the end of the season for the Best Match Report, this will surely win it.