Newcastle v Manchester City, Getty Images November 22, 2025, 9:30 p.m

The championship race in the English Premier League really begins after the Christmas-New Year period, but before that, in the first part of the season, a considerable number of mistakes can be made, in order to not have the opportunity to correct them later. And so after 11 games played, everyone was wondering what impact those three defeats and one draw would ultimately have on Manchester City’s performance going forward.

And this weekend, the “townsmen” had to play an away match against Newcastle, which could easily be considered the centerpiece of the tour, if the North London derby wasn’t waiting for us the next day. However, despite Eddie Gough’s not-so-successful start to the season in the Championship and a corresponding place below the equator of the standings, the match at St James’ Park was still a highly anticipated event on Saturday’s game.

It was worth talking about this match, in particular, because of the way its first half turned out. It was as if we visited a fair of extravagance, because only for inexplicable reasons did the teams leave the boundaries of the field before the break with no goals scored at all, instead of scoring each other with three effective shots from each side. And this is only a superficial review of those scoring situations that took place in 45 minutes.

In City, of course, the Donnarumma factor played in the goal, which in the first half of the game simply perfectly read all the challenges that came to him from the opponents. And it doesn’t matter if it’s Voltemade heading in from close range or Barnes not being able to beat the Italian goalkeeper. In Newcastle, too, by and large, everything was transparent in this regard – Pope again, by some miracle, constantly found the right position in front of the ball, which he hit in the end. Well, or Foden simply couldn’t shoot more precisely in an almost guaranteed goal situation. Both coaches did not have time to clean their hands from their own goals.

And in the end, after what was seen in the first half, there was no doubt that the banquet would continue. But already with a more accentuated desire of the guests to snatch victory, this can also be understood. However, City’s attacking takeover and further mistakes by Bernardo Silva and Holland eventually sparked the situation as Newcastle began to use quick counter-attacks and eventually got ahead of their opponents.

The fate of the match was ultimately decided by six minutes in the middle of the second half. First, Bruno intercepted the ball in the middle of the pitch, then he played a double wall with Barnes in front of the penalty area, and eventually Harvey shot a long-range shot into the bottom left corner. But already in the 68th minute, Diaz completed a series of rebounds in the center of someone else’s free kick with a shot past the palisade of the defenders’ legs near the goal line.

And it seemed that City began to prepare another assault to press the opponents, but instead, Newcastle once again loaded someone else’s free kick with passes from the flanks, and in the end, if not Bruno with a header on the crossbar from a few meters, then Barnes again brought the “forty” ahead. This time it was final, because until the end of the away game, only Savio’s shot over the goal from a rebound situation similar to Diaz’s goal could be considered dangerous.

Newcastle: Pope — Livramento, Thiaw, Scheer, Hall (Botman, 77) — Guimaraes, Tonali, Joelinton — J. Murphy, Voltemade (Willock, 85), Barnes (Elanga, 85).

Manchester City: Donnarumma — Nunes, Diaz, Guardiol, O’Reilly — Silva (Reinders, 76), Nico Gonzalez, Foden (Marmouche, 87) — Sherky (Bobb, 77), Holland, Doku (Savio, 76).

Warning: Joelinton – Donnarumma, Bobb