After half an hour at St James’ Park, Liverpool looked totally out of it, with captain Virgil van Dijk sent off, top scorer Luis Diaz substituted so that Joe Gomez could reinforce the defence, and vice-captain Trent Alexander-Arnold playing one of his worst-ever games.
That they emerged with the victory was thanks to the renewed focus and courage of the 10 men in the second half and, ultimately, the stunning finishing of the 77th-minute substitute Darwin Nuñez.
But nobody should forget the part played by Newcastle manager Eddie Howe and his assistant Jason Tindall.
Consider the situation at half-time. Fifty-five thousand fans were eager to see Newcastle finally punish a side who in recent years have become both a bogey team and a grudge fixture.
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Newcastle, powered by Saudi investment, are trying to vault past Liverpool in English football’s power hierarchy, while Liverpool cry foul about unfair state investment. Liverpool were the only team to do the league double over Newcastle last season, and those games were notable for the increasing hostility between the fans and especially the rival coaching staffs.
Last week had seen renewed rumours that Al-Ittihad of the Saudi Pro League will try to sign Liverpool’s best player, Mohamed Salah. Al-Ittihad are owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is chaired by Newcastle’s chairman, His Excellency Yassir Al-Rumayyan.
The bad blood flowed freely from the first whistle. After six minutes, referee John Brooks booked Alexander-Arnold for throwing the ball petulantly after Anthony Gordon had barged him clear off the field. It was a classic example of PGMOL logic: ignore obvious fouls, ruthlessly punish anyone who complains about being roughed up.
A minute later Alexander-Arnold grabbed at Gordon as the Newcastle winger burst past him down the wing. It was a clear yellow card for a tactical foul, but the referee, evidently reluctant to send off Alexander-Arnold after seven minutes for his first foul of the game, shrank from the obvious decision.
Brooks knew he owed Newcastle one, and 20 minutes later, he made Virgil van Dijk pick up the tab for his clumsy foul on Alexander Isak. By then Newcastle already led 1-0 after Alexander-Arnold’s error let his nemesis Gordon in to score.
Now Liverpool were a goal down, a man down, punch-drunk and completely at Newcastle’s mercy. Now was the time to ramp up the tempo and the pressure and tear them to pieces, to send them home with a beating they would never forget.
Instead, Howe’s Newcastle played it safe.
“The plan was to go and get that second goal,” Howe reflected after the game. Maybe he should have mentioned that to his players, because from the way they approached the game, it looked very much as though Howe and Tindall had told their men to go out there and run down the clock.
Newcastle defenders contentedly knocked the ball around in front of a 10-man Liverpool who, a man down, were unable to put them under any coherent pressure. You could see the logic. Time was on Newcastle’s side. It was Liverpool who had to score, let them tire themselves out chasing. Newcastle just had to avoid making a mistake.
But St James’ Park has never been known for its infatuation with Logic.
According to the awful recent Amazon documentary about Newcastle, the wild emotional abandon of the stadium is what attracted the Saudi investors in the first place.
The documentary is really a film about the Newcastle owners, with Amanda Staveley as the star and His Excellency al-Rumayyan in a major supporting role. In the first episode we see more of these people than we do of the players and more footage of Riyadh than of Newcastle.
The show appears to deliberately ape the look and style of Succession, with sequences of gleaming black Range Rovers pulling up outside castles to the accompaniment of pulsing strings. Unlike Succession, however, there are no laughs or subversion, just pure corporate hero-worship propaganda.
We see His Excellency in the castle, playing foosball. “Look at me!” he beams. “I’m captain!” Off-camera underlings greet the witticism with delighted laughter.
The most interesting thing about the film is watching how Staveley, who has made a fortune serving the super-rich, goes about the crucial business of “managing up”. We see that in this world, there is no such thing as too much flattery. There is no such thing as a glistening-eyed smile of adoration that is too full-on. At one point, His Excellency, with a mischievous grin, opens his jacket to flash the inner lining at Staveley, revealing it is striped black and white in the colours of the Magpies. Her reaction of thrilled astonishment leaves no one in any doubt that she is, once again, marvelling at his genius.
Naturally we hear plenty of pabulum about the special Newcastle fans. Staveley describes her first visit to St James Park: “My hands, everything, my whole body just lit up. I’ve got goosebumps all over my skin.”
Staveley may come across as unusually excitable in this quote, but she is, however insincerely, talking about something real. There are not many grounds like St James’ Park when the home team gets on a roll. It is fitting that it appears to be the favourite stadium of the human volcano Nuñez.
Last night will have many of those fans wondering if Howe is the right kind of manager to channel this fury. Against Liverpool, Howe misread the mood and in a bigger sense, misread his club. With the fans baying for shock and awe, he gave them a cautious percentage game.
As the second half wore on, with Newcastle failing to press home their considerable advantages, patience gradually sagged into passivity. Diogo Jota and Harvey Elliott came on to add insight and unpredictability to Liverpool’s moves; the home fans became quiet, then nervous, then fearful.
And then Nuñez ran through twice, and Howe had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as few have ever snatched it before.
