Never has a Manchester United victory been cheered so heartily on Tyneside.
Relying on Ruben Amorim’s team for a favour is like asking a seagull to guard your chips, but that is where Newcastle found themselves in the final half hour of their season.
A dream campaign so illuminated by a first domestic trophy in 70 years was in danger of ending in darkness. There was no shine to be gleaned from silverware if chucking away the pot of gold that is the Champions League.
To think, Eddie Howe had insisted on Friday that he had no interest in results from elsewhere. During the closing stages here he should have asked for a feed from Old Trafford, because those in front of him looked incapable of taking care of their own fate.
‘That philosophy went right out the window!’ said Howe afterwards. ‘It had that feeling with half an hour to go that it might not happen for us. You think, “What is happening elsewhere?”.’
There was no shortage of effort from Howe’s players, but it felt as if they were trying to outrun the horizon – and the head coach was right when he said the goal or goals they needed were never going to arrive.
Newcastle were able to secure Champions League football despite their 1-0 defeat by Everton
Loan star Carlos Alcaraz headed home in the 65th minute to score the only goal of the game
Man United’s 2-0 win over Aston Villa meant Newcastle finished fifth place on goal difference
They, rather, had to come from Manchester United. For 11 minutes after Carlos Alcaraz headed Everton into a 65th-minute lead, Newcastle were outside the top five. It suddenly felt funereal inside St James’ Park, and visiting goalkeeper Jordan Pickford was the undertaker.
Then, news of Manchester United rising from the ashes of their own season and taking the lead against Aston Villa, who dropped to sixth. Then, a penalty, and word that Christian Eriksen, in his final game for Man United, would take it. The Toon Army were still grumbling about the sentimentality of that pick when mobile alerts revealed that Eriksen had scored. The Dane was suddenly more popular than anyone in black and white.
‘Those last stages were strange, because we knew that, bar a miracle, we would get there,’ reflected Howe.
Some of his team fell to the ground on full-time, only to be lifted – literally and metaphorically – by the sound of the Champions League theme over the PA system. They must have feared it was another mistake, on the back of a performance stained by so many. Not so, and within seconds there was a black-and-white huddle bouncing in celebration.
‘It’s weird, you’re jumping up and down with the group and you have to join in,’ said Howe. ‘But partly you’re not happy doing it. I’m miserable as anything after we lose, but this time I had this nice feeling that I was battling internally.’
There was no nice feeling for much of this afternoon. Everton were deserved winners and man-of-the-match Pickford very nearly enjoyed the perfect double, on the back of hometown club Sunderland’s promotion 24 hours earlier. He would have happily spoilt Newcastle’s end-of-season party and, if not for Manchester United, he would have done.
David Moyes’s side had taken a hose to the red-hot atmosphere that insulated St James’ in the moments before kick-off. So much for wearing flip-flops, they turned up in boots and with their studs sharpened. This was supposed to be a stroll against the strollers for Newcastle. As it was, the hosts had to run far harder in defence of their goal than they had anticipated. Nervous excitement very quickly made way for nerves and, come half-time, Newcastle were relieved to be level.
Pickford made four good stops before the break, but Nick Pope was called into more evasive action at the other end. The pick was his fingertip brush over the crossbar to deny Alcaraz from Vitalii Mykolenko’s delivery.
Newcastle earned Champions League qualification for the second time in three seasons
Everton’s keeper, meanwhile, was already public enemy number one because of his place of birth. It was him being in the right place in Everton’s goal that strengthened the home loathing. There was a double block from Sandro Tonali and Alexander Isak and then a pair of saves to keep out Sven Botman from successive corners.
Howe and Jason Tindall were locked in conversation on the touchline in the minutes before half-time. When a third coach, Graeme Jones, joined the touchline conference, you knew that change was coming.
Anthony Gordon was hooked after a first half in which he rarely troubled Ashley Young, the 39-year-old filling at right back. On came Joe Willock and later Kieran Trippier, but with change nothing changed. If anything, Newcastle got worse. That was not the fault of the substitutes, but more a collective malaise that had long since set in.
Isak showed more animation in an exchange with the coaching staff than he did the penalty area, while Burn urged his own fans to calm down as anxiety spread. It did not work and, when Alcaraz flashed in from Mykolenko’s cross, there was outright panic. For all the champagne of Wembley in March, the aftertaste in May would have been bitter if missing out on the Champions League.
That much was evident when Howe outlined the summer of strengthening that he hopes now awaits, ahead of post-match talks with chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
‘I will have a discussion with the chairman and representatives from PIF today,’ he said. ‘The Champions League is a huge selling point for us now. It’s an opportunity for us to sell that dream to future players that might be considering coming to us. We haven’t made a major signing in the last three windows. We’ve been working hard to try and set things up for what we need to do.’
Newcastle may have lost a football match, but they won the lottery. They just never thought it would be Manchester United buying their ticket.
