Newcastle will be in danger of taking a tumble. A wrong step now and the ground underneath them will start to crumble. Suddenly, a campaign full of promise is teetering on the precipice. The stakes are always high and Newcastle cannot always keep losing their chips. Pressure will build, it is just the way things are in football. Win and Newcastle will be two games away from a second successive domestic cup final and Howe will have another wonderful opportunity to end the most infamous trophy drought in English football.īut lose to Mauricio Pochettino’s side and all of the positive work done since August will start to unravel. Thin margins, but after three defeats in a row, Howe needs a good result at Stamford Bridge next Tuesday. Newcastle might well be out of Europe, but with a League Cup quarter-final against Chelsea to come in just six days, the domestic cups will either salvage or ruin the first half of their campaign. Newcastle are out of Europe but there were those of us who always felt Champions League football had come a little too soon in their transition from relegation battlers to ‘big six’ disruptors.Īnd even amid the crushing sense of disappointment as Newcastle threw away a 1-0 lead and then refused to settle for the draw that would have ensured the consolation prize of the Europa League, there was a sense that this campaign can still be a successful one.īut although a tricky question about where this leaves Howe and his players can be asked now, the truth is we will only know the answer this time next week. This was another of those implosions against AC Milan but it does not need to be a disaster. They are a club who have not been able to get over the line so often that you always expect them to trip and fall on the home straight. They are a club who have lost five cup finals in a row since last celebrating silverware, a club who failed to win the Premier League in 1996 despite having a 12-point lead at the start of the year. Newcastle are a club who cannot shake off their past.
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