The snow and ice blanketing Tyneside never melted all day and the evening temperature dipped well below freezing point but Newcastle United remained far too hot for Manchester United too handle.
Although, ultimately only Anthony Gordon’s second-half goal separated the pair, that narrow score lines fails to reflect either the superiority of Eddie Howe’s players or the indifference of their often direction-less guests.
Erik ten Hag’s travel plans were disrupted when the freezing weather dictated that the plane scheduled to deliver his team to Tyneside could not reach Manchester after becoming stranded at an another airport.
Although a different aircraft was dispatched to Newcastle in time to fly Manchester United home on Saturday night, the visitors could have done without a long, slow, tedious trans-Pennine coach journey to St James’ Park.
Given that they were in Istanbul last Wednesday, drawing 3-3 with Galatasaray it was turning into a bit of a gruelling week for a club currently featuring seven senior players in the treatment room.
Such fatigue was possibly to blame for an early confusion filled, and slightly comedic, cameo involving André Onana and his left-back for the night, Diogo Dalot. With communication evidently having broken down between the pair, Dalot rushed to intercept what looked to be a routine clearance for his goalkeeper.
Arriving in haste he lifted the ball over an alarmed looking Onana and seemed set to register an own goal before somehow hooking to safety. At one point in that ungainly manoeuvre the ball appeared to strike the defender’s arm but Dalot escaped unpunished. Had their keeper’s mistakes in Turkey, unnerved Ten Hag’s rearguard?
Maybe Dalot was simply discomfited by the ferociously relentless attacking zeal of Eddie Howe’s XI. Although a Newcastle side deprived of eleven senior players through injury or suspension and still recovering from Tuesday’s emotionally draining 1-1 draw at Paris Saint-Germain hardly have things entirely easy at present, they dominated the first half.
Admittedly there were odd moments when some wonderfully intelligent counterattacking passes delivered by the sometimes slackly marked Bruno Fernandes threatened to undo Howe’s team but they represented rare exceptions to the general trend.
Indeed Onana, goaded horribly by the Gallowgate End throughout the opening half, needed to prove his worth by saving smartly to deny Miguel Almirón following Joelinton’s adroit cut back. Meanwhile Alexander Isak saw a shot deflected wide by Harry Maguire, Bruno Guimãraes went close from just outside the area and Jamaal Lascelles headed off target from six yards.
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Despite Fernandes’s best efforts – and you wonder what Ten Hag would do without his talismanic midfielder’s improvisational vision – very little was season of Manchester United as an attacking force. An effectively sidelined Marcus Rashford certainly looked increasingly frustrated at being persistently second guessed by Howe’s once again impressive left-back, Tino Livramento.
Yet when, with half time fast approaching, Kieran Trippier’s wickedly swerving free-kick hit the bar, Newcastle’s manager must have started wondering if some sort of magnetic force field was protecting Onana’s goal.
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If Ten Hag feared that his team would not be able to ride their defensive luck for much longer, Manchester United’s rather disjointed, less than cohesive, display perhaps reflected the reality that this was the first time this particular XI had all started together. Even so, the lack of a discernible strategic framework around Fernandes prompted questions as to whether the Dutchman remains overly reliant on individuals changing games courtesy of moments of off the cuff brilliance.
With Newcastle pretty irrepressible this was more a night for dogged visiting defending and Luke Shaw, deployed at centre-half, made some important blocks and interceptions.
Unfortunately Shaw and co suffered a concentration outage as unmarked Anthony Gordon swept Trippier’s cross home at the far post after Guimarães’s had unhinged Ten Hag’s back door.
Manchester United’s manager shook his head but he could hardly argue that goal was either unmerited or unexpected.
He responded by replacing Rashford and Anthony Martial with Antony and Rasmus Højlund but they saw their side survive a handball penalty appeal after Lewis Miley’s shot was blocked by Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
Howe’s joy at another mature performance from 17-year-old Miley was tempered when his goalkeeper Nick Pope sustained a nasty looking shoulder injury and was replaced by Martin Dubravka.
Almost immediately Antony volleyed beyond the newcomer but the ball took a deflection off an offside Harry Maguire, the effort was disallowed and Newcastle rose to fifth place.
