2024/25 Season Review

&c

This was truly a season of miracles.

A season when, despite seeing no first team signings for a third straight window (in summer and winter) and being forced to sacrifice Elliot Anderson, Yankuba Minteh and to a lesser extent, Lloyd Kelly and Miggy Almiron on the altar of PSR, Eddie Howe and co finally brought silverware back to Tyneside.

And talk about doing it the hard way, beating Forest (on pens), Chelsea, Arsenal (twice) and Liverpool along the way, plus AFC Wimbledon and Brentford. At the time of the final, that meant beating the top four teams in the league to win the trophy. To then come back from Wembley with the grit and determination to qualify for the Champions League by the skin of our teeth on the final day was the gigantic cherry on top of the icing of the cake of this season.

In that context, it's easy to forget that the start of the season was inconsistent, with good results but poor performances leading to worse performances and poor results. We only won three of our first nine league games, and after a brief resurgence, a four game winless run culminating in a rank 4-2 defeat at Brentford left us 12th in the run up to Christmas.

This prompted a big internal reset from Eddie Howe, and what followed was a simply unbelievable, club record-equaling nine game winning run, during which Jacob Murphy channeled his inner Messi and Sandro Tonali emerged as a true world class talent in a deeper role, though realistically he would often cover every blade of grass.This run included an incredible 2-0 win at Arsenal in the first leg of a brutal looking League Cup semi final, setting us up beautifully for the second leg, oddly scheduled more than a month later.

The nerves predictably grew ahead of the second leg, a 1-2 home defeat to Fulham in the preceding game not helping, but we sealed the final spot with a 2-0 win. And then naturally, we started properly wobbling, losing three of the five games before Wembley, including against final opponents Liverpool, in which Howe tactically rested Isak as to not give away plans for the Big One.

And then Lewis Hall, who had blossomed into one of the finest left backs in the country, broke his foot and was ruled out for the season. And then Gordon got absolutely mindlessly sent off in an FA Cup 5th round defeat in the game before the final, and here we go again, cursed, we don't stand a chance. But then from somewhere, who knows where, a sense of hope seemed to grow as the day of the final went on, to the point where, half an hour ahead of kick off, I inexplicably announced "I reckon we can do this".

And we only bloody did.

From the first second we were rampant, harrying, flying into tackles, pressing and passing and running and getting shots away. And then Dan Burn - Big Dan Burn - England's Big Dan Burn, having just been called up for his debut - jumped a full 10 foot (at least) into the air to nod home, and then bedlam, but only in the stands, pubs and on the streets. No bedlam on the pitch, or only organised, professional bedlam, as we picked up where we left off after half time, Isak scoring the most important of his 27 goals to seal the deal.

Of course Liverpool scored near the end, and I could only think how if we threw it away from there, we'd never, ever win anything, it would be the ultimate proof of a cursed club. But somehow we didn't, and this is what it's like to win a cup. Now we know.

The credit to the players and staff only doubles from there, coming home with the trophy and then getting into the Champions League via a fifth placed finish, though we had to rely on Man United to do us a favour, something they haven't exactly been keen on historically. They certainly owed us this one, and somehow contrived to beat Villa, the league's in-form team, 2-0, rending our home defeat to Everton inconsequential. And so we go into the summer with the promise of Champions League cash, the prestige of actually being able to win a trophy, and... no sporting director?! Yes, of course, this being Newcastle, we still can't make things easy for ourselves, Paul Mitchell announcing just after Eddie Howe called on the club to move quickly that he was, indeed, moving quickly, out the door less than 12 months after joining and getting into a public slanging match with Eddie.

Regardless, the miracles Eddie & co have performed this season mean they are all legends, and Eddie must finally be backed with signings this summer.

Who knows what the future holds, but if we never win another game, we'll always have this season.