Long Reads
Author: Richard Alderson - Senior Football Writer
The Premier League pauses for breath, and for Newcastle United supporters, that means a week without the drama of Eddie Howe’s side. But while St James’ Park falls quiet, plenty of Magpies will be flying the flag for their countries. From senior internationals chasing World Cup qualification to youngsters plotting their path to the Euros, here’s your guide to who’s playing, where, and when.
Eleven games in, twelve points on the board. For Newcastle United under Eddie Howe, this is uncharted territory, the slowest opening to a league campaign since his arrival. The contrasts are stark and unavoidable.
It’s tempting to brush off the table with the familiar refrain: “We’re only 11 games in.” But 11 games is more than a quarter of the campaign, and history has a way of turning early patterns into final truths. Last season, most Premier League sides moved no more than three places from their position after matchday 10 to where they finished in May.
Newcastle went to West London with expectations already scraping the pavement. Winless away in the league since April and fresh from a 3-1 surrender at West Ham, few in black and white anticipated anything other than a grind at the Gtech. They didn’t just meet those low expectations, they tunneled beneath them.
After back-to-back strong finishes, seventh in 2023/24 and fifth in 2024/25, Newcastle United’s opening to the 2025/26 season has felt strangely muted. Ten games in, they sit 13th. The table is tight and the sample is small, but the story so far is clear enough: even as the defence has quietly improved year on year, the attack has regressed sharply.
For a club that has redefined the speed and scale of its rebuild, Newcastle United’s left back spot has been a slow burn and a running debate. Two very different interpretations of the role, Dan Burn’s defensive certainty and Lewis Hall’s natural, forward-leaning profile, have coexisted across the last three seasons, shaping the team’s balance, the centre-back partnerships inside them, and the way Eddie Howe’s side looks when it tries to tilt the pitch to the left.
Football has always been a game of trends, and this season, the Premier League has taken a decisive turn toward the set piece. After years of obsessing over build-up play and positional rotations, the 2025–26 campaign has seen a dramatic rise in goals from corners, long throws, and rehearsed free-kick routines.
After a turbulent autumn in east London, West Ham arrive at matchweek 10 in a fragile state: Graham Potter is out, Nuno Espírito Santo is in, results haven’t improved, and the points column remains worryingly thin. For Newcastle, this is a chance to impose control away from home against a side still searching for its bearings under a new coach.
When Newcastle United paid £55 million to sign Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2025, the logic was straightforward. Eddie Howe needed a top quality right‑wing option, someone who could both stretch teams and add end product, an upgrade on the diligent and much‑improved Jacob Murphy. The expectation was an instant impact, or a near instant impact.
After a midweek European high, Newcastle United return to Premier League action with a home fixture against Fulham, a side that’s tactically sound, injury-hit, and unpredictable away from Craven Cottage. Marco Silva’s men arrive on Tyneside with a clear identity but a muddled run of form, and Saturday’s match offers a fascinating contrast in styles and squad depth. Here’s everything you need to know before kick-off