Big-game wins and Tonali’s triumphant return – how Howe got Newcastle back to winning ways

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Six wins in a row 

©TM/IMAGO

Newcastle continued their impressive run of form in the Premier League on Saturday with a 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur to stretch their rise up the league table to five successive wins. In a hard-fought clash against the North London club, Eddie Howe’s side departed the capital with all three points, as they edged closer towards their goal of finishing in the top four come the end of the season. However, with fixtures coming thick and fast at the start of the new year, Newcastle now face Arsenal in the English League Cup in what will surely be their toughest test in recent weeks. 

Although the Geordie club started the season well with a five-game undefeated run in all competitions, Newcastle then hit a notable dip in late September and subsequently picked just two wins from 11 league matches. Not only did the club fall to twelfth in the Premier League table, but reports also began to suggest that Howe could be in serious risk of losing his job if his side weren’t able to turn their form around. Fortunately for the St James’ Park side, Newcastle did exactly that and since mid December have perhaps been the most in-form team in the Premier League. So what changed in Howe’s side that quickly allowed the Magpies to get their season back on track and how long will this impressive run of form continue? 

Newcastle show their qualities in the big games 

Perhaps one of the biggest factors behind Newcastle getting their season back on track has been the fixture list offering up big games for Howe’s side to thrive in. While it may seem counterintuitive to suggest that tougher opponents would help Newcastle get back into the swing of things, there’s little doubt that Howe’s team seem to prefer playing teams of equal or even better quality. In the past month Newcastle have beaten Tottenham 2-1, Manchester United 2-0, Aston Villa 3-0 and drawn 3-3 with league leaders Liverpool. And that all came after wins over Chelsea, Arsenal and the aformentioned Spurs earlier in the season. 

Interestingly enough, when we take a look at the head-to-head records of last season’s top eight sides in this season’s Premier League, we get a table like the one above, which shows how well Newcastle have fared in the big games. Only Liverpool have taken more points off other big hitters in the English top-flight this season, with Howe’s side picking up more points in the crucial head-to-heads than Arsenal and Chelsea, while picking up more than three times as many points in said fixtures than reigning champions Manchester City. When we then couple that with the fact that the teams that Newcastle have lost to this season are Fulham, Brighton, Chelsea, West Ham and Brentford, it not only suggests that Howe’s team seem to struggle against mid-table clubs that are happy to defend against them, but that this current uptick in form may be due to more head-to-head clashes with bigger clubs. Which certainly bodes well for the club ahead of their cup clash with Arsenal this week. 

Tonali sparks Newcastle’s attack into life 

On a tactical level, one other major factor behind Newcastle’s march up the league table could be the return of Sando Tonali. The Italian international missed the start of the season due to a 10-month suspension for breaching Italian betting regulations, which meant he wasn’t entirely match fit for Howe’s team until mid-October. In turn, the central midfielder only properly returned to Newcastle’s starting XI as a bona fide starter on matchday 13, which has notably coincided with the club picking up just one defeat in their last eight league games. And what’s perhaps most impressive is how Tonali’s return has allowed Howe to get the best out of another midfielder in his squad. 

With Tonali slotting back into the central midfield role, Howe has in turn been able to push Bruno Guimarães into a more attacking role for the team. Since the Italian’s return to a starting role for Newcastle, Guimarães has picked up one goal and four assists in eight league games. Prior to matchday 13, the Brazilian midfielder had managed just one assist in 12 league games. And when we narrow that down to a per-game average, it means that Guimarães has gone from providing 0.04 goal contributions per league match without Tonali, to 0.36 per league game with him. And with the Brazilian playmaker back in the final third for Newcastle, the team’s front line of Anthony Gordon, Jacob Murphy and Alexander Isak have unsurprisingly popped back into form. As we can see in the graphic above, Murphy has gone from 0.2 to 1.0 goal contributions per game, Gordon has risen from 0.27 to 0.75 goal contributions per game and, perhaps most importantly, Isak has more than doubled his average from 0.6 to 1.37 goals and assists per game. 

Of course, it remains to be seen whether this impressive run of form can continue for the remainder of the season. Oddly enough, the real test for Howe’s side may come after their clash with Arsenal, when they need to face Wolves, Bournemouth, Southampton and Fulham in the league. Although these sides aren’t the most formidable on paper, they are the kind of mid-table or lower league sides that Newcastle struggled against in the first half of the season. But should they avoid too many dropped points in those four games and keep most of their key players fit for the duration of the league campaign, top four seems like a very achievable prospect for the Magpies.