What's Next for Newcastle United?
Newcastle United – good enough for 2024/25 but what about 2025/26? Alex delivers his verdict.
It’s the time of the year when you’ve nine months of weekend plans made on your behalf by the ‘supercomputer’ fixture generator at Premier League HQ. These days you can ask an AI tool to generate fixtures for you and include the crucial amending rules to provide for supporter safety, television corporation satisfaction and competitive fairness - such as Newcastle United only playing in Merseyside on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening.
In my (admittedly small) world the new season’s fixtures allow a departure from the previous season as we look forward to the next. With that in mind I wanted to put down some thoughts on what went right for Newcastle United in 2024/25 and what Eddie Howe and his staff will need to be looking to improve on in 2025/26.
Bottom Feeders
Just like the fish that feeds on organic minerals on the ocean floor, Newcastle United feasted on the Premier League’s bottom seven sides last season. The Mags picked up a remarkable 39 points this season against West Ham and every side below them in the league, winning 13 of 14 fixtures and losing only to West Ham in that disaster ‘he’s picked Sean over Sandro’ performance at St James’ Park. Only Liverpool picked up more points against the league’s bottom seven sides collecting 40/42 points available (suffering the humiliation of failing to beat Manchester United at home. Surprised they bothered with the trophy parade after that).
There are few greater annoyances in my whole life (on a matchday) than failing to beat the teams that lose most weeks. The additional complexity/hilarity of three of the top ten wage budgets in the league being in the bottom seven (MUFC, THFC, WHFC) makes this an even better achievement as in theory these sides were capable of better on rare occasions this season when they fancied it – eg Manchester United 2 Aston Villa 0.
For comparison, goal-difference-deficient Aston Villa failed to beat Ipswich, Wolves and Manchester United across the season, collecting only 24 points out of 42 against these sides. How embarrassing! A bit like when Pardew and McClaren’s sides would turn out on sky against the big sides, Emery’s boys needed to worry less about PSG under the lights and more about Ipswich at home on a Saturday.
Looking back at Howe’s record in his previous two full seasons, 22/23 saw us collect a respectable 31/42 points and season 23/24 saw us collect a more disappointing 26/42 points. Things are headed in the right direction again and it possibly puts to bed the idea that NUFC ‘can’t break bad sides down’ as barely any of the games against the bottom seven were competitive for large periods, though AFC Wimbledon would like a word on that front.
Middle Funk
The most difficult aspect of NUFC’s 24/25 campaign was against the sides who finished 13th to 8th in the division. Winning only two of their 12 fixtures against these 6 sides and collecting only 10/36 points. Very poor, particularly for a side who with a week to go of the season had a decent chance of finishing in second place.
My own view on these sides is that we suffer against the ‘inbetweener’ sides because we’re neither huge favourites as we are against the bottom 7 teams, or Howe’s treasured ‘underdogs’ like we against the sides who finished in the top 7. BHAFC, BFC, FFC, CPFC and maybe EFC under Moyes are all competent, decent Premier League sides with at least one player who the top three sides in the league would welcome into their squads or starting XI’s. The strength of the Premier League these days is most likely demonstrated in the gap not between the sides at the top and the bottom, but the gap between Crystal Palace in 12th and the side finishing 18th.
It wasn’t just results against these sides but performances that caused a lot of angst. We were comfortably beaten by Brighton at our place, by Fulham at our place and their place, by Brentford down there and Bournemouth up here. Most concerning was the home defeat against Everton on the final day which could have had catastrophic consequences. We were miles off in a lot of these games and seemed to be quite predictable and easy to play against. In most of these games we had more of the ball than our opponents and while I’m mindful of Rafa Benitez’s view that possession was ‘a made up stat for television’, my own perception of these games is that it is these sides who we struggle to break down and our aged centre back pairing and slow midfield struggle to keep up with more athletic opponents targeting us on the counter.
Work to do against this lot next season who will likely occupy many of the same positions in the table again as well as having an improved Manchester United and Spurs among them. The good news is that even a slight improvement against this lot, whilst maintaining our dominance against the bottom seven teams would see us finish comfortably in the top 5 next season.
Away discomfort
I’ll not spend too long on this but last season there was an interesting conversation on going about NUFC’s perceived poor away form. Howe’s side finished as the tenth best away side in the league with 28 points from their 19 games however this is only one point less than Manchester City who finished with the sides fourth best away record. Not bad, some might say.
Taking a closer look NUFC’s record against the top 13 sides in the division (12 fixtures excluding ourselves) and it’s unpleasant reading. One win in those twelve games and seven defeats with only eleven goals scored. That’s a problem. Against the five sides finishing in the top 6 the record reads 5 defeats, 15 conceded and 2 goals scored. Not ideal when you’re competing with these sides in a tight league.
A greater concern will be the away record against the sides I’ve listed in the ‘middle’ part of the league than the top, but disaster performances at Man City and Aston Villa were particularly damaging as the four goals conceded really could have been much worse on the day.
The only solution to this is buying better, faster, younger footballers. Dan Burn and Fabian Schär have been magnificent at times this season, but if they retain long-term starting places next season as first choice, I’d expect our away form against the top 13 to get worse rather than better. Eddie Howe must be given the tools to solve these problems.
Underdog Winners
Against sides at the top of the league NUFC’s very strong home form as them doing very well overall. In the 12 fixtures against the top 7, NUFC picked up a respectable 17 points. Aston Villa collected 11. Unbeaten at home against the whole of the top 7 with 5 additional wins against them in the League Cup, NUFC were far more comfortable against these sides than the middle group discussed above.
Despite the away issues against these sides (and all these sides have very strong home records against the rest of the league), our home form provided us with a very respectable record and points total. Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa aside, these sides are far greater resourced than we are and our record against them is testament to what Howe could achieve with a better equipped squad and first team. Despite much online moaning from elements of our fanbase about the St James’ Park atmosphere, it remains one of the hardest grounds to visit for the best teams in the land (and arguably Europe).
Future
It’s clear that Howe took his deflated, static squad from the brink of disaster to one of the great seasons in the club’s history and certainly in my lifetime. Scratching beneath the surface of a fifth-place finish on goal difference allows us to see our reliance on dominating the league’s worst sides in a way all bar Liverpool were able to. Eddie Howe hasn’t been able to sign a player in a transfer window that has majorly impacted first team picture in the immediate months that followed since 2022.
There is only so long you can win so few away games against the capable sides of the division and struggle against sides who are finishing in the bottom half and outside of the European places and expect to maintain a presence as a Champions League qualifier. Each of Howe’s full seasons the team has fallen away in May, losing critical games as injuries and fatigue bite.
Despite an improvement in injuries this season, this was to be expected with no European football, and the absence of Joelinton and Kieran Trippier (and Lewis Hall) at the end of the season forced Howe into what turned out to be a formation and system change which simply didn’t work and has largely been glossed over due to the barely believable favour we got from Manchester United. I very much doubt Howe wanted to move away from his preferred 4 3 3 formation in such critical games, but he must have felt he had no other option.
Rumours of Howe only getting ‘one or two’ first team players due to PSR constraints cannot come to pass. We cannot go into another season, regardless of European football, with a squad of 13/14 players the manager thinks have a realistic chance of starting if there are no injuries or suspensions. The foundations are there for NUFC to improve on all the trends I’ve highlighted in this article, but I also strongly believe that being a soft touch for the better recently-invested-in and athletic Fulham, Bournemouth, Brighton and others, could see things fall apart spectacularly next season if Eddie Howe isn’t given what he deserves.
We need 4-6 new players (allowing for a couple to leave) and we need them quickly. The manager told us this minutes after the season finished in the Everton post-match press conference. I hope the people this plea was directed toward, were listening.
ALEX HURST
An excellent clear-headed analysis that shows the extent to which last season papered over the cracks. Agree entirely about the ageing back four and slow midfield. Villa and City away were horror shows that still give me nightmares.
As you say, the manner of many defeats was concerning. That flatness/staleness in many games is a real worry, including quite a few where we got a result. In fact, only Forest did better than us in points vs performances last season, another indicator that things will be harder next season.
I'm sure Eddie's aware of all these things, but there's a real feeling for me that this group of players is getting close to the end of the road, and sometimes that cliff comes along much more suddenly than you expect.
Re PSR and getting deals done early. Does PSR accounting year end 30th June, and could that mean we & others (inc Villa who I read are close to exceeding PSR) are still restricted until July before buying players?