If Eddie Howe’s side beat Bournemouth at St James’ Park tomorrow lunchtime, they will become the first Newcastle United team in history to win ten games in a row in all competitions.
Kevin Keegan’s side won nine in a row in the 1992-93 season, only to fail to reach double figures when they were held to a goalless draw with Middlesbrough in the League Cup. Rafael Benitez’s title winners won nine on the spin in the 2016-17 campaign, only for the sequence to end with a home defeat to Blackburn.
Both of those runs came in the Championship, so it can be argued that Howe’s current team have already climbed to the top of the pile thanks to their nine-game winning run, which features six successes in the Premier League, two wins in the Carabao Cup and an FA Cup victory over Bromley.
Win again tomorrow, though, and their status will not be up for debate. Statistically, they will be the best Newcastle United side in history. Admittedly, they won’t have the silverware to prove it, although perhaps that will arrive before the end of the campaign, but even so, as accolades go, it’s not exactly a bad one to have on your CV.
It would enhance Howe’s position as an all-time Magpies managerial great, further cementing his place alongside the likes of Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson in the pantheon of modern-day bosses who have achieved great things on Tyneside.
In his usual self-effacing way, Howe has always sought to play down comparisons to the towering presences who have preceded him, but it is surely now impossible to deny that he has earned the right to be held in equally-high esteem. Indeed, if he can keep this run going, it might not be too much longer before he surpasses all those who have gone before him.
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“It’s a great thing (to be compared to the likes of Keegan and Robson”,” said Howe. “I would never view that negatively. For me, the only uncomfortable thing is you don’t compare yourself to anyone, you don’t intentionally think about it.
“Those people have been legends of the football club in the past and I hold them, personally, in the highest esteem, not just for the job they did, but the way they conducted themselves.
“They are legendary figures and rightly so. But I don’t view myself that way, I just view myself as a person trying to do this job to the best of my ability. Trying to win games for the football club.”
Be that as it may, Howe has transformed Newcastle’s fortunes during his time on Tyneside, shifting perceptions of how the club is viewed at the same time as dramatically improving both results and performance levels.
In the past, the Magpies might have been seen as the ‘Entertainers’, but they were also viewed as being somewhat flaky and likely to crack when the pressure was really turned on.
Howe’s side is much more streetwise, adept at the ‘dark arts’, and is developing a collective mental resilience that already enables it to stand apart from some of the lauded, yet ultimately unsuccessful, teams of the past.
“I wouldn’t say we’re trying to change the narrative,” said Howe. “But we are trying to build a new mental framework that we can win anywhere, that we can achieve great things and not associate ourselves with any historical negative psychological viewpoint.
“It’s all about the future and creating a new narrative for ourselves. We are very proud of the teams of the past that have played the way they did and built the legacies that they have, we embrace that totally. But we have to be our own team and create new history for ourselves.”
Might that history involve winning the league title? Alan Shearer ruffled a few feathers when he suggested Newcastle were involved in the title race in midweek, but with every win, the Magpies make it harder and harder to write them out of the equation.
Beat Bournemouth tomorrow, in the first fixture of the weekend, and they will climb to third position, just six points behind league leaders Liverpool.
“I always say I have no problem with fans getting caught up in any kind of feeling,” said Howe. “That’s absolutely encouraged. The players, I think, are slightly different. They have got to still be controlled.
“Sometimes, that talk (of the title) and those thoughts, you can take your focus off what you actually have to do to get there. From my viewpoint, that would be more towards the players’ side.
“But I think that it’s important that we recognise our strengths and how strong we are. I think we are a really strong team playing well. I really love our squad, I think we are in a really good place. We’ve got some very good players and we’re trying to enjoy what we are doing without thinking too much about the consequences at the moment.”
