Newcastle United once again came away from the Etihad stadium empty handed as Manchester City managed a 1-0 win on home turf.
Eddie Howe named an unchanged side after blowing away Aston Villa 5-1 last week, but Newcastle’s performance against Man City was far from great.
It was said that there wouldn’t be a better time to play Manchester City coming off the back of a tough Super Cup fixture on Wednesday and missing Kevin de Bruyne and John Stones, but Newcastle failed to take advantage.
Newcastle couldn’t capitalise on Man City’s tiredness
City did start to slow down towards the end of the game but Newcastle couldn’t capitalise and City held on to see out the game at 1-0 after Julian Alvarez’s first-half strike put them into the lead.
One player that did seem to turn the tide in Newcastle’s favour slightly was new boy Harvey Barnes who came on to replace Anthony Gordon who was treading a fine line with the referee.
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Gordon was lucky to still be on the pitch according to TNT Sport Co-commentator Ally McCoist as his late challenge on Kyle Walker in the second half could have earned him a second yellow card had Joelinton not immediately clattered Phil Foden and earned himself a booking.
Barnes and Gordon can be interchangeable for Newcastle
Barnes brought a sense of urgency that had been lacking, something that was noticed by TNT Sport pundit Peter Crouch who remarked after the game: “I thought Harvey Barnes looked well when he came on, he gave them more of a threat”.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Barnes in from the start next week against Liverpool after Gordon’s performance tonight. Not that Gordon was bad per se, but Barnes just seems to carry a bigger threat on the opposition’s goal.
The two young wingers can be practically interchangeable for Howe this season so it’s a case of one of them needing to really stake a claim to that starting place.