I am extremely sorry to be reporting this to you all but I am afraid I have to convey the terrible truth: the 2025-26 season is STILL not over.
Yes, this apparent pandemic of misery that former heroes insist on inflicting upon us will continue to decimate weekends, sending miserable people home across Tyneside.
This was the sixth straight weekend home game where we had been treated as such by the seemingly apathetic millionaires we’re paying an alarmingly increasing rate to be disappointed by. Six out of 13 weekends since Villa in January where, with the best will in the world, it’s near impossible to separate your real life from the bad mood this inevitably promotes.
Any attempt from love ones to jog you away from this mindset provokes a new level of fury and it’s starting to feel like deliberate sabotage from the protagonists on the pitch.
Quite why Anthony Elanga, Sven Botman and Tino Livramento would hold such a grudge against me and my young son is as baffling as it is infuriating.
Throw in away games and it’s less harrowing (wasn’t the problem allegedly travel sickness in a previous life of excuses?). Awful away showings have only added another three weekend upsets since January, with the relative offset of Villa in the cup and the win at Chelsea giving a couple of false dawns that only served as clever psychological tricks to build you up for this unacceptable farce of a s… show that this season has become.
I said to my mate Hutch when the Newcastle United team came out that I have started to hate them a bit. Some with credit from the League Cup win and memorable CL seasons have taken a back seat through injury, regression or straight up leaving the club and all I saw today was Lewis Hall, who has continually done himself justice, Sandro Tonali (class but has obvious eyes elsewhere), Lewis Miley (welcomed back from injury and a hope for the future) and a crowd of apathetic wasters who want to inflict defeats to Sunderland on our mental health. The affection I felt for the team last year has drained away in a fashion that makes me feel fickle, but when you’re walking home through a crowd of ashen faced fellow Geordies, with a downbeat child at your heel, it’s very easy to wish pain, sorrow and transfers to Middlesbrough on all of them.
Anthony Gordon, incidentally, was absent from all of this with a convenient hip flexor injury that was nowt to do with Howe claiming the uncommitted will be omitted amidst chatter of Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Arsenal and other usual suspects being linked. I don’t know whether I sympathise with him for having standards that the rest refuse to attempt to match, or if I feel more ire towards him than most for his patchy form and seemingly aloof attitude. Time might well tell.
The game then: once again it was rubbish.
Newcastle started better but bafflingly refuse to create opportunities on goal or have shots when the possibility arises. There was barely a flicker from a downbeat and destroyed crowd when Bournemouth scored, Tavernier turning in Rayan’s centre from close range with the defence looking typically petrified. Bournemouth hadn’t been near the goal by this point, save a few mind-numbing delays for long throws that brought nowt, but United’s steadfast determination to gift one goal per goal scoring opportunity was admirably maintained. The Cherries didn’t particularly get at us after this, but Evanilson might twitch a bit at the open goal Thiaw et al tried to give him in first half injury time, poking a quick delivery wide of the gaping net.
The withdrawal of Hall at half time was alarming, especially as it’s since emerged that this was because someone thought it was a good idea. However, Kieran Trippier’s second half showing was, for me, better than anyone else managed across 90. A low bar, but the impetus on getting forward and some decent deliveries made you wonder why he’s the one leaving.
This went up a notch on the hour as Eddie Howe played what may be his final card as Newcastle manager. Bruno has been a fatal absence to the season and his return was as welcome as it was overdue. He’d been on the field all of five minutes when he was involved in the move that ended with Osula driving into the box, producing a bit of trickery and slamming in the equaliser. The linesman’s flag went straight up, but after a lengthy delay, the VAR determined that the final ball was played by a Bournemouth player and the goal stood.
At a club where things are even slightly on the OK side of normal, this kind of boost with 20 minutes to play will see a fired up response. Newcastle, of course, contrived to lose again.
Bournemouth hadn’t threatened at all second half. Nor had we mind, with Murphy and Tonali both at least having the gumption to fire off a shot even if they did clear the middle tier of the Gallowgate. The aforementioned Tonali was, for me, critical in exposing how wrong things are as the game was chucked yet again.
With the match in the balance, Sandro pelted forward to pressure Bournemouth’s attempts to play out from the back. He was around a hundred miles clear of all of his static team mates as the visitors played around him and waltzed through a defence who seem to have had their 80th minute instruction to concede at all costs. Truffert’s goal was apparently his first ever in the Premier League. I’d fancy myself to break that particular duck if I got a run at this lot.
The Sunderland game wasn’t quite the last straw; this was. To disgrace yourselves against a local rival is one thing. To have no fire, guts or integrity to strive to put it right is an insult too far.
I love Bruno for his heart on sleeve magnificence and the way he has won games on his own. His standards have not slipped and this has shown through in his costly recent absence. Nor have Hall’s as the ridiculous situation of the left back being your best player in defence and attack has repeated itself over many months. Everyone else seems to have checked out or was never here. Today, Barnes and Elanga were abysmal, Livramento seems to have played himself out of that Man City move even without consideration for yet another injury and Botman is looking more and more like injury has obliterated the fine player we brought in back in 2022.
Eddie Howe needs to own this. It’s ridiculous to see Osula beavering away while his £110m of signings fester on the bench. Wissa has been a disaster but Woltemade seems to have been mismanaged. I’d love to think he can be a success for us in the long-term.
It’s wrong to say that a manager can’t turn things around when a bit of misfortune befalls you, but I’m sorry to say, this is not merely a hiccup. This entire season has been miserable and it stems from poor transfer planning last summer and an inability to rework things to accommodate the talented and expensive players we did manage to land. Trying to barter for Champions League level players when up against clubs who can offer 50% more on wages isn’t ambitious, it’s stupid. If you want a better game plan, see the opposition today. Yet another smaller fish stripped of its assets as Semenyo, Kirkez, Huijsen, Zabarnyi and Outtara all left, only to wisely reinvest in emerging players and put themselves right in the frame for a European place.
The European place is obviously well gone for us now, with today being a Hail Mary in itself. I’m sure I’m not the only person whose WhatsApp groups lit up with Spurs’ win set to reduce the gap to the relegation places to nine points, as the acceptance we may well add zero points from the remaining five games saw paranoia fester. Brighton’s late equaliser meant that a rather less ominous 11 point gap feels enough, even when you seem determined to empty an Uzi into both feet as United currently are.
I should clarify that I have a lot of love for the longstanding members of this squad and the management team that has guided them. Trippier is a confirmed leave but others who go will be remembered as greats in spite of the weak and upsetting series of gut punches that has been 25/26.
As I said, poor runs can be turned round, but turgid, horrifying runs cannot. The drop in standards and the ‘have three points’ circus we have become seems insurmountable and the hope needs to be that people at the club care enough to put it right. It’s an absolute fact that they could do a lot worse than look at the bloke in the opposite dugout today, confirmed as leaving Bournemouth despite weaving alchemy in terms of rebooting a team even if the odd star player leaves. We just need to ensure he hasn’t signed an agreement with the Cherries that he won’t ever beat them in a Premier League game after leaving, as that’s the only explanation for what’s gone on against this opponent in the past four years.
Please end this season now, I want to get off.
Newcastle 1 Bournemouth 2 – Saturday 18 April 2026 3pm
Match Stats
Goals:
Newcastle United:
Osula 68
Bournemouth:
Tavernier 32, Truffert 85
Possession was Newcastle 54% Bournemouth 46%
Total shots were Newcastle 12 Bournemouth 12
Shots on target were Newcastle 3 Bournemouth 3
Corners were Newcastle 2 Bournemouth 3
Touches in the opposition box Newcastle 40 Bournemouth 24
Newcastle team v Bournemouth:
Ramsdale, Livramento (Burn 74), Thiaw, Botman, Hall (Trippier 46), Miley, Tonali (Woltemade 86), Ramsey (Bruno 62), Osula, Barnes, Elanga (Jacob Murphy 62)
Unused subs:
Pope, Wissa, Alex Murphy, Willock
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