The drama of the match between Newcastle and Man City was only wrapped up in 6 minutes (from 64 to 70) at St. Petersburg. James' Park. Newcastle opened the scoring, Man City equalized and then conceded the second goal. Both of Harvey Barnes' goals slowed the opponent down in the title race.
For Newcastle, this victory is extremely important because it helped them temporarily stay away from the relegation zone. Eddie Howe's team currently has 15 points and is temporarily ranked 14th. In many previous rounds, Newcastle have lost all and if they continue to lose to Man City, they will fall right behind the red light holding group.
Newcastle has temporarily escaped the crisis while Man City cannot take this opportunity to breathe hot air into Arsenal's neck in the championship race. Before the match, they were 4 points behind Arsenal. The Citizens are the team that plays first and if they win 3 points at St. Petersburg. James' Park, the gap between them and The Gunners is only 1 point. However, if Arsenal beat Tottenham tonight, the gap between the two teams will be widened to 7 points.
The loss to Newcastle was quite surprising for Man City based on pre-match predictions. First, the home team is in very poor form in the Premier League while the away team has only lost 1/8 of their most recent matches. Not only that, after an unsatisfactory start to the season, Pep Guardiola seems to have found a new formula for his players to operate smoothly. In the end, things did not go as expected.
A few days ago, Pep said that the new season had really started (from November). The Spanish strategist analyzed that when the FIFA Days series in October and November has passed, it will not be until March next year that there will be a gathering but the intensity of the competition will decrease significantly, and the stars will not have to play if they are not among the teams that have to play the play-off to qualify for the World Cup. Therefore, Man City's forces and strategy will be stable and the machine can get into the flow.
However, just when Man City needed to start accelerating, they lost to Newcastle. This defeat was a heavy blow to the championship ambitions of Erling Haaland and his teammates. When he witnessed the first goal, Pep was so angry that he punched himself in the chair in the technical area. Pep understands that if they win this match, Man City will have a very relaxing time when in the next 7 matches, they do not have to meet any team in the Big Six group.
The current 3rd place will give Pep a headache in the Premier League in the context of the Champions League returning next week. At the beginning of the season, Man City recovered very well after losing to Tottenham and Brighton. Now, they have to do it again after the defeat to Newcastle.
