Transformation of Newcastle a huge testament to Eddie Howe’s coaching

T he roar at kick-off, the roar that had been there in most of the previous 18 home games of this season, was maybe given a few extra decibels here. Added to renewed hope, present all season, was a touch of yes, this really is happening.

Then came the moment, with fireworks being wedged into the tops of milk bottles, at the beginning of stoppage time, when Nick Pope was finally forced into some sort of movement to deny Timothy Castagne, to make sure it did happen. It came after one of the Newcastle keeper’s slowest days of the season, after what had often resembled a half-pitch, beat-the-packed-defence training exercise against a Leicester team largely too meek to threaten Geordie dreams.

After the opening roar at St James’ often comes the hush, the tension that describes how much it means in this city. It fell over the stadium after Brighton’s Deniz Undav pulled a goal back here last Thursday night, but this is the way of things here now. That blanket of quiet used to fall over this stadium as a portent of impending calamity. Now it rolls in because there is something to lose. Because there is hope.

That’s what it was always about in Newcastle. If any potential sense of wonder at a gatecrasher to the established order is tempered by misgivings over the club’s ownership in the wider football supporting community, it is not a sentiment widely shared here. In a city that often feels misunderstood by the world outside, it was never about pipe dreams of seeing Kylian Mbappé or Neymar posing for the cameras, stottie in hand. It was about finding a way out from the reviled Mike Ashley. It was about reconnecting with their club.

The transformation on the pitch has, likewise, been about care and attention to detail rather than