The 2025/26 Newcastle United season shuddered to a grinding halt at Craven Cottage on Sunday with a 2-0 reverse and a twelfth placed finish.
The worst league position since the Newcastle United owners bought the club from Mike Ashley and appointed Eddie Howe in the autumn of 2021, the season in which the manager pulled off mission impossible and got us to the lofty heights of eleventh, a monumental achievement considering Newcastle United had registered only one league win before Christmas.
Looking back on this latest 2025/26 Newcastle United season, whilst there were some highlights and positives, they were counterbalanced by the stuttering and often spluttering progress, or if I was to be more cutting, lack of it.
Perhaps the biggest positive, for me at least, was the Saudi Arabia PIF widely reported vote of confidence in Eddie Howe after their Matfen summit ahead of the Brighton home game.
Some Newcastle United fans are calling for the manager’s head, turning on him as the season faltered and that’s fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Eddie Howe has said he is up for the challenge ahead of next season and crucially, it appears he has the backing of the club’s owners and senior staff.
I also wonder who is willing, available, and equipped to do any better, if indeed Eddie Howe did leave?
This season just ended got off to the worst possible start. Not the goalless draw at Villa Park, although with the hosts down to ten men they were there for the taking and we didn’t take advantage. I am of course referring to the Alexander Isak debacle, the scorer of our winning goal at Wembley just three months earlier, downing tools and exiting St James’ Park for the team Eddie Howe had outsmarted in the League Cup Final.
Despite the lure of Champions League football, the second time in three years Howe had charted a path to Europe’s top table, the quest to find a successor for Isak proved challenging; options dwindling after snubs from the likes of Joao Pedro, Hugo Etikite and Benjamin Sesko, before £119 million was splurged on a combination of Yoane Wissa and Nick Woltemade, shortly before the window closed.
In hindsight, spending that much on Wissa and Woltemade doesn’t look particularly wise, but we can all be wise after the event.
The man from DR Congo was injured on international duty and struggled to find any form after eventually returning, his tally of nineteen Premier League goals in the previous campaign for Brentford, turning into a solitary strike registered for Newcastle United at Turf Moor the day before New Years Eve.
As for the German, he played too much too soon and despite an impressive start struggled with the demands of playing week in, week out, something that the Newcastle United squad had to endure for most of the season.
After the draw with Villa, we met Isak’s new club, minus the Swede on a boiling bank holiday Monday, losing in the 100th minute after we’d pulled back from two goals down, Anthony Gordon’s crass stupidity meaning we played the second half with ten men, more than matching the recently crowned champions of England.
After Woltemade’s header against Wolves had registered our first win of the season, our next home game saw us lose the lead against Arteta’s Arsenal, United a goal to the good courtesy of big Nick again, before late goals from former player Mikel Merino and Gabriel did for us, the game undoubtedly turning when Tino Livramento was fouled by William Saliba and had to exit play with less than a quarter of an hour remaining.
Dropping points from winning positions became a theme that plagued our season; twenty-seven were lost in total as the side kept on exhibiting a brittleness that was exposed time and again.
After the Arsenal match, there were some reasons to be cheerful, United registering five wins from six, winning twice in the Champions League, twice in the Premier League and once in the Carabao Cup, the trophy we had set out to defend, but a loss at Brighton was followed by defeats in London (at West Ham and Brentford) and on the Cote d’Azure against Marseille, defensive frailties and lack of creativity on the road meaning we were too easy to beat.
That said, it’s instructive to be reminded that between 1 October and 10 December, United won nine and drew two of the other games they played, a punishing schedule which didn’t relent until the middle of March.
Nick Woltemade had started impressively, registering two-thirds of his entire season’s tally by mid-December, but his confidence was dealt a hammer blow when he scored at the opposite end at the Stadium of Light, a goal that gifted Sunderland all three points as United put in a truly dreadful display.
After that horror show on Wearside, the games continued to come thick and fast, five wins in our next seven were chalked up, including the late, late show against Leeds Utd when goals in injury time saw us overturn a 3-2 deficit to win 4-3 as well as the FA Cup shoot-out victory against Bournemouth on a cold January afternoon, before Manchester City arrived in town a few days later for the first leg of the League Cup semi-final.
Without doubt, this was our biggest game of the season, the third time United had contested to win a place at Wembley in this competition in the space of four years and although performances had been patchy, there was belief, Man City had succumbed at St James Park earlier in the season when a brace from Harvey Barnes had the faithful chanting his name to that timeless Joy Division classic.
On the night, whilst it’s fair to say that Newcastle United gave a good account of themselves, it was also the case that Man City left Gallowgate with one foot in the Final, their second goal in a 2-0 win coming in injury time, a dagger to the heart, with Guardiola’s side finishing the job at the Etihad as United relinquished their grip on the first domestic trophy they’d defended in over seventy years.
In his final season, Guardiola won both domestic trophies, Newcastle United also losing to the sky blues in the FA Cup. There were no easy draws for United as things got to the business end of the cup competitions, tricky ties against Bournemouth and Aston Villa had to be negotiated before the fifth round encounter with Man City and in the Champions League, it was Spanish champions Barcelona that extinguished our hopes in the round of 16, although not before United had almost upset the apple cart. Harvey Barnes’ late strike looked to have won the first leg at St James, but that was cruelly cancelled out by an even later strike from Lamine Yamal, before a calamitous second half collapse in the Nou Camp, the Catalans progressing by an aggregate score of eight goals to three.
The fragility that saw those points surrendered from winning positions went up a notch around the time of the Champions League exit, four defeats at what was no longer Fortress St James, with Brentford, Everton, Sunderland and Bournemouth all strolling into town and taking the spoils, that awful run punctuated by the brilliant victory against Man Utd, United down to ten men but finding a way, Will Osula winning it with a tremendous goal in front of the Gallowgate deep into added on time.
By this stage, it seemed that Eddie Howe didn’t know his best team, or where those he selected should play.
The loss of Bruno Guimaraes for two months between February and April was a hammer blow, but team selection was at times baffling. Anthony Gordon was fielded as a makeshift number nine before ending the season on the bench, on his way to Barcelona it would seem, with Will Osula becoming the first-choice centre forward as Woltemade was played in a much deeper role, or not at all.
In goal, Nick Pope and Aaron Ramsdale both struggled for form, the lack of continuity between the sticks in contrast to the ever-present Malik Thiaw, playing in front of the goalies, who in truth was the only one of Howe’s summer signings that really delivered.
Of those other signings, Wissa and Elanga were woeful, six goals between them all season, whilst Jacob Ramsey grew in stature across the season, getting more opportunities because of Bruno’s injury.
Another baffling decision was when Eddie Howe dropped Lewis Hall towards the end of the season.
As the season drew to a close, a modicum of positivity had returned, United having mustered two wins and a draw prior to the loss at Fulham and with it, a European berth still possible going into the final month. However, it’s worth noting that relegation to the second tier was as much of a possibility before the win against Hove Albion on 2 May and that just about sums up this rollercoaster of a season.
As I write, Anthony Gordon is lined up to go to Barcelona, those overseeing matters seemingly learning the lesson from the protracted Isak saga and swiftly concluding this deal. Kieran Trippier and Emil Krafth are also set to leave as their contracts expire and it’s set to be a big summer for comings and goings at Gallowgate as we hope to put 2025/26 behind us.
For me, European football, even away from the glamour of the Champions League would have been great, just look at how Villa and Palace have embraced being in those lesser competitions, but without the distraction, I’m hoping for a return to having a much stronger domestic campaign when the new season starts up.